


The Witch Called Dido

by agbarnes



Series: Not A Hogwarts Witch [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate History, America, F/F, F/M, Hogwarts, House Elves, Ilvermorny, MACUSA | Magical Congress of the United States of America, Original Character(s), Squibs, The Sorting Hat
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:20:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 57,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23939800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agbarnes/pseuds/agbarnes
Summary: It is hard to be a witch in eighteenth-century England. It's even harder when you're refused admission at Hogwarts, prompting the whole of Wizarding society to shun you and (whenever your back is turned) call you such horrible named as squib. But the daughter of a powerful and determined cannot be forced into the shadows. Instead, she is sent across the world to attend school in the Americas, without any friends or allies, ever aware that the smallest failure could mean disownment from her family, and her people.
Series: Not A Hogwarts Witch [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1726594
Comments: 12
Kudos: 4





	1. The Girl Behind the Dragon Clock

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!
> 
> This is my first time writing of this nature, and it has been a very interesting experience! As a historian, I've always been fascinated with the Harry Potter universe and this fascination has turned into a story. While this story follows the timeline of history given to us by JK Rowling (at least, as much as it can) it is almost ENTIRELY full of original characters/original plot. So please forgive me if this is not something you're interested in!
> 
> I look forward to any feedback you might have!

Summer, 1763  
England

At night, the great clock in the hallway looked something more like a dragon than a harmless fixture made out of wood, glass and metal. Stained dark by old dyes, the looming shape seemed to stretch endlessly towards the ceiling, the winged supports on either side lengthening and growing scales, the gnarled feet curving into talon claws, the glassy face glaring down ferociously at anyone who dared disturb its slumber. And every so often, it would let out a booming roar to remind the members of the household not yet abed that the time had long since passed to retire for the evening.

The small figure tucked between the back of the clock and the wall it leaned against did not mind the ominous image. She knew that the servants, the only ones who would notice that she was not asleep in bed as she was meant to be, were too frightened of the thing to come near it. She knew that her parents, if they spared a moment to think of her, would not imagine their child to be comfortable near the object. And she knew her brother, even if he knew her well enough to know that dragons did not frighten her, would not spot her, hidden away as she was. She had spent hours before folded between the smooth wood and rough stone, ear pressed close to the wall to hear the words being murmured on the other side. Never once had she been caught.

This particular evening, she did not need to listen very closely. The voices on the other side of the wall were raised in a way they rarely were, stress and frustration combining to create the intoxicating cocktail of shouted arguments. Often the words being exchanged had a meaning she did not quite understand, unfamiliar as she was with much of the world outside her home. Still, she listened on, desperate to catch as much as she could make sense of. For she knew the words being spoken in such angry voices were all her fault.

“It is _your_ greed that has delivered us thus!” the shrill voice of a woman, so rarely ever heard of as anything other than a gentle purr, accused.

A male thunder responded, “You dare speak to me this way? And I, your husband? Your master?”

The conversation was devolving. The girl could tell that much. Her dark eyes in her pale face seemed almost as large and shadowy as the clock she hid behind, obscuring any feeling from her countenance. She knew the churning in her stomach was caused by guilt, and the copper taste in her mouth by the persistent chewing on her cheek. But her outward appearance was cool and calm, the way they always told her to be.

Whatever the woman said in response to the man was lost in the sudden roar of the clock. Generations ago, an ancestor had charmed it to keep an eye on their family. It only sounded like that, so angry and vengeful, when someone was not obeying the natural curfew of the house. But as there were too many people still awake, between the husband and wife, the various servants scuttling about, the girl knew her presence out of bed was a secret still. She felt the familiar rumble of the clock against her skin, vibrating against the nerves that had long since fallen asleep due to her pose. Grimacing slightly, the girl shifted to accommodate those limbs now waking up.

When the roar died down, it was the husband who could be heard first.

“-machinations of that ridiculous Derwent slag are to blame!” he was shouting. “They seek to punish me in all avenues. Of course they would stoop so low, to mishandle a child of mine!”

“A child of _mine_ , as well, lest you forget,” the woman shot back. “She suffers the fault of her father, no less than I suffer the fault of my husband. A thousand curses on my brother, for arranging us. Would he have seen that our futures become so grim!”

“ _Not_ grim, never grim!” he countered, “I shall not suffer the indignity and shame of ceding defeat.”

“There are no more indignities to suffer through,” his wife said sharply. “All paths but one have been trodden on, and none have proven even the least part fruitful.”

He did not respond, but she could picture him. The man was tall, with copper hair and dark green eyes that looked upon everyone, even his own two children, with the same frosty and calculating gaze. But in that moment, he would not have been his usual proud self. He would be slumped in a chair, hands covering his face, elegant hair in disarray. The very picture of hopelessness.

The girl on the other side of the wall let out a long breath. She had not been certain, until she heard his proclamation, whether it would be better or worse for them to give up their long campaign. For near three years now, she had been pulled along with their desires, performing like a house elf in order to demonstrate that their claims about her abilities were true. It was beginning to wear on her, she knew for her brother had said as much. She was so small, even for her age, and the bones beneath her skin seemed too large for her frame. Those dark eyes seemed to swallow the entirety of her face. She was sending meals back to the kitchen largely uneaten, and nights such as this one, spent roaming the halls after dark, were not in the least bit uncommon. One would have thought it would be a blessing, to give this up.

She might have imagined that the thought of more examinations, more demonstrations of her abilities, would have brought her to tears. But it was somehow worse, to know that the two people in the world she most desperately wished to please were giving up on her. The gnawing ache in her stomach intensified. Perhaps it was hunger. More likely it was the overwhelming sense that she had failed. Failed at something she had not known it was possible to fail at.

Another sigh, and the girl slowly inched her way out of her hiding place, patting the large dragon clock comfortingly as she went past. The wood hummed under her fingers, recognizing her as a member of the family and perhaps thankful for her intention to return to the wing of the manor where their beds were. She made sure to pick up the hem of her nightgown, a dusky purple that her mother had promised would be a most fetching color on her when she was of age, so that the sound of the fabric trailing on the ground would not alert any member of the household to her presence. Softly, she padded on silent feet down the hallway, leaving the clock and the still-arguing voices behind.

The house at night was quiet, but not still. There were dozens of people who roamed the halls after dark, house elves continuing to clean and polish wherever dust might have dared to rest during the day, the kikimora coming to stir up trouble (an accidental export from an adventuring ancestor) and the domovoy trying to put it right again (the failed attempt to solve the kikimora by the same ancestor). There were even a few witches scurrying about, preparing the front of the house for entertaining that was surely to occur tomorrow. Regardless of whatever the Master and Mistress of the house had going on personally, they were always sure to participate in the daily ritual of visitations across their social and political network. The amount of work it took to prepare for such visitations was extensive, and the girl knew surely there were still people up and about trying to get ready.

The young girl knew how to avoid them, though. She knew not to take the second doorway on the right, a more direct route to her room, but taking her directly through the path that Meeny would take when dusting the baseboards. Even though she hadn’t eaten supper, she knew better than to try and sneak a biscuit from the kitchen. The servants stair would be filled with servants, but the main stairwell would be cleaned by the house elves. It was best, she knew, not to use the stairwell at all. The only option would be to take the trees.

Out the third window from the west stairwell, the girl latched her hands around the thick ivy vines that had attached themselves to the shaded wall eons ago. Once secured, she scurried her way to an appropriate height where she could reach the farthest edge of a tree bough. If she was any smaller, her arms would not reach the branch. If she was any larger, her body weight would cause the branch to break. But she was the perfect size, and with a well-practiced move she swung herself into the waiting arms of the tree. Her room was nowhere near her current location, however. So carefully she danced her way through the trees, leaping from one to the next, keeping one dark eye vaguely focused on the silhouette of the building beside her. This was routine for her.

What wasn’t routine was the faint glimmer from the corner room, just before she rounded the building in the arms of a holly. The glow startled her, and she nearly lost her footing. The sound of a branch cracking ominously beneath her right foot, and the sudden rush of air leaving her lungs, left her feeling shaken and exhilarated at the same time. By the time her heart stabilized, the glowing in the window was blocked by a familiar figure.

“Is that you, little Rabbit?” the gentle tones of her elder, and only, brother sang through the air.

He was not supposed to be awake. She was not supposed to be awake, true, or barefoot in a tree, but that was hardly the point. She knew how to be awake without causing a disturbance, but he did not. His voice was too loud, his light too bright, and when he leaned out his open window, it was like he was cutting the night air with his body.

She allowed herself a scowl, though she was not truly upset with him. It was not his fault there was something wrong with her. It was not his fault she was in the trees when she was supposed to be in bed.

“Come in, quickly, before you fall,” he continued. He was leaning out to her, arms outstretched as if she were a bird he was hoping would perch there.

“I’ve never fallen before!” her voice was determined, but the moment she spoke she knew the words were wrong. Now he would know that this was not the first time. Now he would know where to look for her.

As if sensing her reluctance to engage with him tonight, or perhaps with anyone, the boy in the window heaved a sigh. With a lazy flick of his wrist, a thin stick of wood appeared in his right hand. Her eyes went to the object immediately, and she was unable to hide the emotion there. Longing. Anger. Desire. Defeat. He knew her well enough to read the thoughts behind her gaze. Feeling almost guilty, he waved the wand and muttered a soft incantation under his breath.

The branch she had been standing on shuddered beneath her feet. If she had not been expecting it, the sudden movement might have sent her plunging to the ground below. Instead, she balanced herself carefully as her brother summoned her closer. He leaned back as she approached, making space for her.

“What spell was that?” the girl asked as she jumped elegantly from the branch, bare feet landing nimbly on the stone windowsill before she slid into the waiting room.

He grinned at her as she passed him, “ _Arbum crescerio_ ,” he told her.

She sounded the words out in her head, lips moving along silently. Ever since he had been sent off to school, barely before she could print her own name, Guarin had been returning home each summer to teach her the things that he had learned. That had perhaps been what started this entire mess. Not even waist high, she would totter after him repeating enchantments and waving her hand as if she, too, possessed a wand.

A wand. She slid another guilty glance at the object in Guarin’s hand, and then flushed when she realized he had been watching her. Feeling even more guilty than before, she wrapped her thin arms around her chest crossed the room to sit herself on his bed.

As the eldest son and heir, Guarin’s room was practically garish. His bed was large and tall, with several down mattresses stuffed so thick and fine one practically sank into them. The wallpaper, an exotic oriental print, had gold accents and images of deer and centaurs dancing across the walls. There were thick quilts, a plush carpet, and heavy curtains to fight against the cold he would never feel during winter. And the variety of possessions he had acquired over the years, gifts from friends and allies at school, treasures from various fellow boys attempting to cement connections, and expensive texts and tools from their father, were piled in various places. Even though he left the room empty most of the year, somehow Guarin managed to make the space feel loved and lived in.

She did not begrudge him the obvious affection from their parents. It was not as if their love for him detracted from their appreciation of her. It was her own fault that they could not care for her more, were not as proud of her as they were of him. If only there wasn’t something so inherently wrong with her.

“Want to help me put it back?” Guarin’s question broke through her inner turmoil.

She glanced up, to see him still at the window, wand pointed at the obviously overgrown tree branch that was practically climbing in through his window after her. Peering into the darkness, it was clear that the poor tree was now dangerously unbalanced and swayed precariously against the side of the house. For a moment, she imagined crossing the room again, listening to the words and practicing the motion that would undo the magic her brother had just done, so casually as if nothing had happened.

Then she imagined that dark room she had been in earlier that day, with so many strangers standing around her and her parents just behind. She remembered the way they had given her words to repeat, gestures to mimic, and the so obvious delight in her eyes when she failed to perform as they required. Shaking her head against the memories, the girl muttered a quick phrase of disagreement, gesturing for her brother to continue without her.

It did not help that Guarin so clearly _looked_ like both of their parents in a way that she did not. He had their father’s pale copper hair, their mother’s pale blue eyes. It was as if he had chosen his features from a catalogue of the two, nothing a blend, nothing a mixture. Their mother’s nose on their father’s cheeks above their mother’s mouth above their father’s chin. If she even glanced at him, she could see the tightness in the corner of their mother’s lips or the frown on their father’s brow. Despondent, she turned away from him.

Frowning at her dejected figure, Guarin put the tree back to rights before moving to sink down into the bed beside his sister. He resisted putting an arm around her shoulder or hugging her closer as he might have once done. It seemed this year had been harder than the ones before, and for whatever reason, he was starting to think that he was no longer as close with her as he once was.

“Tell me, Dido,” he asked gently, “What were they saying down there?”

Her dark eyes flickered towards him before quickly darting away. It seemed it shocked her, that he so easily guessed where she had been. Perhaps she had not changed as much as he feared.

“They’ve given up on me,” she admitted after a long pause, horrified to hear that her voice had become thick with some unacceptable display of emotion. “They aren’t going to appeal again.”

He sucked in a shocked breath. Despite the years of appeals, despite the lengths that they had already gone to in order to try and succeed, he had not ever imagined his parents giving up. Onfroi and Catriona Montessier were not people likely to ever admit defeat. Particularly not on such a sensitive subject.

“Well,” Guarin tried to say comfortingly, “Hogwarts isn’t everything, you know. I’m sure Mama can teach you all you need to know here at home. Very few girls you know choose to attend anyways, it’s far more common to learn from mothers.”

“I _know_ that,” she insisted, tears in her eyes, “But you don’t understand! They’re already talking about me. Papa wouldn’t even look at me at dinner. They must be so ashamed!”

Her brother frowned, confused, “What do you mean, talking about you? What is there to say?”

The girl laughed, sharp and mocking. She jumped to her feet, pacing the space before his bed rapidly as she spoke. “What do you know? You’ve been away. You haven’t heard what the wives whisper, how they look at me. They call me a _squib_ , Guarin. They won’t stop talking about the Montessier _squib_.”

“You’re not a squib,” he argued, “Dido, you know you aren’t a squib.”

She only paused her pacing long enough to send him a derisive glare. The tears that had been welling in her eyes began to slide down her cheeks. “Then what am I? I’ve failed every test, Guarin. They’ve had p-professors and healers and m-ministry of-ficials come p-poke and p-prod at me and-!”

“But, Dido-,” he tried to interject, but she continued, her voice rising desperately.

“It’s none of it _worked_! I am a s-squib, I must be!” she cried. “A-and Mama and Papa, they’ve a _squib_ for a d-daughter, and they won’t ever love me again, they won’t!”

Before Guarin could try to protest once more, his sister turned and fled from the room. Somehow, she managed to do it without her bare feet stomping across the floor, or the heavy wooden door from slamming shut behind her. Guarin leapt up, intending to chase after her, but when he wrenched open the door, he could see nothing down either end of the long corridor. Before he could fumble for his wand to cast a _lumos_ , Gokpey the house-elf appeared at his feet.

“Does Master Guarin need something?” the feeble voice of the elderly elf asked shrilly.

Guarin winced, praying that wherever his parents were arguing, they could not hear the familiar tone of the house elf. Backing into his room, Guarin assured the elf several times that he was fine, that he did not need a glass of warm milk, that he was going back to bed now. By the time the Gokpey had been sufficiently satisfied that his wizard was not dying of thirst or freezing in the warm summer air, Guarin knew it would be foolish to try and chase after his sister. She was either safely in bed by now, pretending to be asleep, or she had safely hidden herself away somewhere she knew he would not be able to find her. Reluctantly, the young wizard returned to his room. It did not take long for the boy to fall into a fitful sleep.

In her own room, the girl was neither asleep nor pretending to be. She had heard Guarin arguing with Gokpey as she closed her own door behind her, instantly thankful she had not been caught and relieved that he would be distracted from coming after her. She did not immediately crawl into the bed that was now so rarely slept in. Instead, she curled up on the hearth of the empty fireplace, staring at the place where in wintertime the embers would dance and play with one another.

It had been three years since her father first began the process of appeals to resubmit her name for admission into Hogwarts. It had seemed inconceivable to nearly everyone in the wizarding world that a Montessier, daughter of two prominent lines, would be denied her opportunity at the school. Yet today had finalized it. She had been tested by every means possible, and every test came back the same. She was not suitable for attendance at Hogwarts. They had even deigned to bring the Sorting Hat to the last hearing, placing it on her head and listening to hear if it could overturn all the previous conclusions.

After a painful fifteen minutes, the hat finally declared, “She is unsortable. She has no place at Hogwarts.”

The words had been haunting her for hours. _She is no Hogwarts witch. She is no Hogwarts witch._

She closed her eyes, trying to remember the feel of the fire that was not there. The heat of the flames, the sound of the logs burning, the taste of smoke and ash in her mouth. She stretched out one pale hand towards the grate.

“ _Ignis_ ,” she whispered, barely more than an exhale.

When she opened her eyes, the grate was awash with light. A brilliant flame burned before her, white-hot and dancing merrily.


	2. The Girl Called Dido

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short backstory on the main character, and how she recieved her name.

The girl was called Dido, but that was not her name. She had many names she went by, depending on who was calling her. The Korrigan that acted as her nursemaid called her Siofra, her mother called her, her little Linnet. Whenever he was feeling gracious towards her, her father would shout for his darling girl and sweep her into a dizzy embrace.

It was her brother that had first started calling her Dido. Always so fond of his history, Guarin had been reading classics when they first discovered her tendency to light things on fire. It had driven the Korrigan near mad, a stout and kindly dwarf-like woman who had to spend her days running about with a pail of water in her hand to put out whatever the child had decided to alight. Even her parents had broken away from their own concerns to notice the chaos their near-infant child was causing.

“She’s like as much to burn herself alive in her crib!” the Korrigan had wailed one day, a mere hour after realizing that the sleeping child had lit her cot on fire after sneezing in her sleep.

Eleven-year-old Guarin had found the entire situation rather amusing. Having just acquired his first wand, Guarin spent most of the few months before journeying to Hogwarts for the first time practicing his _Aguamenti_ charm.

Their mother, Catriona, though not a master of charms, had managed to cast enough spells to largely fire-proof the nursery. That particular day, she was fire-proofing all the dresses in the wardrobe, while Guarin was conjuring balls of water for his three-year-old sister to play with.

“We shan’t let her do that,” Catriona assured the Korrigan. “Shan’t we, my dear?”

“Of course not,” Guarin, who despite their difference in age was rather fond of his sister, readily agreed.

The squat Korrigan, with ash on her cheeks and burns on her hands, hovered anxiously over the girl as if waiting for her to spontaneously combust. “It would be better if the fire did not hurt her, but it got her last night, did it not, wee Siofra?”

It was true, for her fingers were the shiny pink of freshly healed blisters. Thanks to Catriona’s talents, they managed to be healed that far, and she had ordered a burn salve from London likely to reduce the discoloration completely within a few weeks. Despite the pain the night before, the young child was surprisingly merry today. She chattered happily, like a pink-skinned, blonde haired monkey, bursting bubbles of water over the stone floor.

“Then she shall learn not to play with fire,” Catriona said logically, as if it were a simple lesson to learn.

The Korrigan was clearly not appeased, but knew better than to contradict her mistress. Unlike house-elves, Korrigans had strong maternal instincts that made them ideal nursemaids. They were not bound to a single family, and lacked the magical skills attributed to more versatile servants. Instead they were traded between prominent wizarding families, passed on from new mother to new mother for generations before finally reaching an age to retire. This particular Korrigan had come to the Montessier’s from the Selwyn’s, close friends and allies of theirs. She was nearing the age of her own retirement, the few strands of hair on her head a steel grey laced with white. There had been a handful of Korrigans clamoring for the position after the child had been born, an apparent lag in prominent wizarding breeding that year, but they had taken this one off at Celestina Selwyn’s insistence.

“Or she’ll sacrifice herself on a glorious pyre of her own making,” Guarin suggested morbidly, “Like Dido of Carthage.”

“How gruesome,” Catriona murmured, while the Korrigan looked exasperated enough to throttle the boy.

“Well,” Guarin allowed, “Perhaps she will wait until her marriage fails first.”

Despite all protests from the Korrigan that such a dark story was unfit for the ears of a precious child, the nickname stuck. From henceforth, the pale-haired child was christened Dido to all who knew her. Even when they were at their most cross with the girl, who thankfully shortly after outgrew her tendency to burn things at random, her parents still seemed to only remember Dido. Even in the appeals to the Ministry, they had called her thus. _Dido Montessier, daughter of Catriona and Onfroi._

Her true name was Meiriona Eleanor Montessier, but any attempts to call her something other than Dido seemed to fail. She tolerated Siofra with few questions, grimaced under Linnet, and only allowed darling girl because it came with the thrill of a warm embrace from her father. As Guarin aged, he began to insert other names, such as Little Rabbit, Rat and Bothersome Pest. But still, they always returned to Dido. When a childhood friend, Lillian Lestrange, attempted to start calling her _Mary_ when they were six, the young Dido responded firmly by never speaking to Lillian again. Even now, five years later at the wiser age of eleven, Dido had not broken that silence.

What Dido had broken, numerous times, were a variety of objects around the home in bursts of accidental magic. She seemed prone to it, more so than Guarin himself nor any other child the Korrigan had cared for. While at first Catriona and the Korrigan had tried to grow the girl out of harmful and dangerous accidental magic, they soon realized that the only way to control her ability was to train her. Like many other witches of prominent lines, Catriona had refrained from attending Hogwarts in her youth, and as a result she only had the education necessary to run a large household. By the time Dido was seven, and Catriona had near exhausted her ability to teach the girl to control herself and her power, she finally turned to her husband for help.

Onfroi Montessier was a foreboding man. He was tall, with thick arms, deep-set eyes and a piercing scowl. He had largely focused on his son and heir, Guarin, to train him to take his place in the Ministry of Magic when Guarin graduated from school. Guarin learned from a young age the value of making friends with all sorts of powerful people, how to couch your beliefs in coded language, and when to compromise on those values in order to maintain position. His use for Dido would be found later, when she was old enough to cement an alliance with another wizarding house through marriage, much like Catriona’s marriage from the Rowle family had done with him.

When it was brought to his attention that his youngest child, however, seemed to be a magical prodigy, Onfroi was very willing to turn his attentions to her. It started simply, bringing her out at gatherings to stun their allies with her displays of carefully controlled, wandless and childhood magic. Then he began pushing her to learn more, to demonstrate her knowledge in a way that far surpassed that of her peers (and even, he would boast privately, many young students at Hogwarts). Only when her reputation had grown to a sufficient size, did he approach Headmistress Dily Derwent of Hogwarts to petition for his daughter to be given early admission and access to a wand.

That was where the trouble began. Dily Derwent had owled back a simply _We cannot offer Miss Montessier admission into Hogwarts_. At first, they had not realized the weight of her message. They believed that she was simply refusing Dido the right of early entry. Angry, Onfroi had tried to use his influence to press for a reconsideration of the subject of early admission. It was only several weeks later that the full truth had come out. Unlike her brother, her friends, and nearly every living person she knew, Dido’s name was not on the list of future Hogwarts students. For that very reason, she must not be a witch.

Thus, began the years of tests, the years of petitions and applications and enquiries by the Ministry. Dido was forced to perform her seemingly impossible magic, over and again, before an audience of sympathizers and doubters alike. The Montessier allies were shocked and outraged that such an obviously talented girl was being denied her rightful place. Onfroi’s enemies began generating rumors that the girl was a squib, a fraud. It seemed Dido was suddenly pulled into the middle of a political battle she had not been aware her parents were embroiled in. Her name was frequently mentioned in gatherings, though never in print as such a thing was quite uncouth. But none of it changed the fact that, three years after their first petition, and the Headmistress of Hogwarts remained firm. Dido could not attend Hogwarts.

“Are you sure that someone else isn’t casting the magics?” Derwent had asked the unlucky girl’s parents. “You have mentioned that the girl is quite fond of her brother. Could he be doing it? Perhaps unconsciously even? Out of pity and love for his sister?”

When her parents had pointed out that Guarin had not even been in the room for many of the tests, hidden away at Hogwarts for most of the year, the Headmistress made a not so subtly suggestion that one of them might be doing it. Outraged and offended, Onfroi and Catriona had dragged their daughter from the room, her father shouting threats and their mother shooting glares.

And now her parents could not stop arguing with themselves long enough to even acknowledge Dido. Catriona was fond of reminding her husband that if he had not pushed for Dido to attend Hogwarts early in the first place, she could have remained at home to be instructed as she herself had been, and her mother and sisters before her. No-one would have been the wiser. But now that the entire affair was out in the open, to keep Dido at home would be feeding the flames of rumor that she was a squib. The shame of it would ruin Onfroi, and his standing in society. They were at an impasse. Keep fighting an impossible battle, or lose face by admitting defeat.

Catriona, it seemed, had the final say. Despite being widely recognized as a timider witch than her burly husband, she always did know how to push Onfroi’s buttons in just the right way. After the final hearing at the Ministry, and the argument Dido overheard in the hallway, it was quietly decided that there would be no more attempts. Dido was to remain home. And whatever backlash that created, the Montessiers would have to find a way to manage it.


	3. The Girl and the Gardner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now resigned to a life of idle chatter and household spells, Dido is forced to accompany her mother during their daily social gatherings. But when an unwelcomed visitor draws Dido away from morning tea, she is startled to discover that the world is larger than she realized.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again!
> 
> Thank you for making it this far. I promise we're moving along to Dido's journey across the sea. Feedback and comments welcome!

They were having tea in the receiving room, a bright July morning, and Dido was doing her best to avoid being drawn into conversation. Just as they had for the entire three-year battle, the Montessiers maintained that there was nothing amiss by keeping their home open and placing frequent social calls. This pattern did not change after that fateful evening when Catriona decided to stop pushing for a future they would never see. Instead, Catriona decided it was long since time to bring her only daughter into the world that, by all means, should have been hers to begin with. The witch threw herself into her social life with great fervor, as if hoping by demonstrating to Dido how pleasant her life was, the girl would be less hurt by her parents abandonment of her formal education.

Catriona Montessier hosted guests in the morning in the east drawing room, an airy and opulent space that had been designed to best show off the Montessier estate. There were several large windows positioned to best catch the early rays of sunlight, with enchanted glass that colored to prevent accidental blindness. Rather than braziers or iron stoves to heat the space, an ancient Montessier ancestress had imbued much of the furnishings and flooring with mild heating charms (the unfortunate result being Catriona had to counter said charms with cooling ones come summer, as the spells had not aged well and no longer shut themselves off.)

The hostess reserved a gilt chaise lounge to recline against, placed near enough to the center of the room that all eyes could not help but being drawn to her, though she rarely was seating long enough to recline. She preferred to be about and moving, speaking with each guest, dashing in and out of the room to arrange matters with the human servants, or further back into the house where the house elves remained hidden. It was not at all respectable, after all, to tout such creatures out and before the public. She was the perfect hostess, always smiles and charms, always elegantly dressed.

But Dido knew she did not belong. There were a few girls her age in attendance, but they mostly stuck together and sent Dido a few sidelong glances. It had been too many months since Dido had attended one of her mother’s morning teas, and more than a year since she had left the house for a social call. The Hogwarts affair had consumed too much of her time and energy. When not performing for various audiences, Onfroi had had her studying and practicing under his strict eye. The result of the missing time from her own social group left Dido feeling more of an outsider than anything else.

Every so often Catriona would try to catch Dido’s eye, try to bring her into conversation with one of the numerous witches she entertained herself with, but Dido thus far had managed to avoid being brought out of her corner. She held a nearly full cup of tea in her hand, gazing at the leaves that clumped at the bottom of the cup and trying to tell herself she could see a future in them. What sort of future would that be? Unable to call herself a real witch, denied the education that she grew up thinking she was entitled to.

A shadow crossed before her, forcing Dido to abandon her self-pitying imaginings and look up. An unfamiliar figure stood before her, face obscured by the light streaming around her back.

“Are you unfriendly, child, or simply friendless?” a peculiar voice asked, the accent sounding harsh and foreign to her.

Dido knew how not to be rude, even if the question did not make sense. She proffered a bright smile, setting down her cup and leaping to her feet to offer her seat to the witch. For a moment, the larger witch did not move. Dido danced further away from the chair, as if hoping that by putting distance between herself and the seat it would become more appealing to the stranger. The woman standing before her was nowhere near as glamorous as Catriona, her wide face aged and frizzy hair turning grey at the roots. She only wore a traditional robe, with no elaborate dressing underneath. In fact, Dido was quite certain she saw the end of trousers beneath the hem of her robe. Still, when the witch smiled there was something warm there.

“Have we been introduced?” Dido asked, knowing the answer. She had never met this strange witch, who smelled like dirt and trees and something else she could not quite name.

“Arabella Merrythought,” the witch said bluntly, offering a hand.

Perplexed, the young girl hesitantly reached out and grasped the offered appendage. She had never had to shake hands with someone before. Her Papa did that occasionally with wizards he considered himself fond of, and she knew Guarin was frequently offering his hand. But she was a _witch_ , and witches did not shake hands. They would nod, or give a soft curtsey. Never shake.

“You may release me,” the witch instructed, when it was clear Dido was uncertain the proper length of a handshake.

Flushing, the young girl dropped Merrythought’s hand, and watched as the witch settled herself into the chair that Dido had only moments ago abandoned. As the witch sat, Dido’s suspicions were affirmed when the robe parted long enough for Dido to recognize that the witch wore male trousers beneath her robe. Fascinated, Dido sank down to sit on the warm stone floor, her arms around her knees and her large, dark eyes hiding the curiosity in her mind.

There were a few quiet moments between them. The witch seemed to be watching Dido just as carefully as Dido was watching the witch. There was not much to see, for Dido was small for her age, with thin bones that seemed to make up the most of her frame. Her small face was beginning to lose some of the childhood softness, previously round cheeks in the process of giving away to high cheekbones. As was common for children, Dido was allowed to wear her white gold hair loose down her back, falling in gentle curls like a curtain behind her. Her eyes, large and a shade so dark it was impossible to tell if they were brown or green or blue, stared unblinkingly up at the witch. When their gazes crossed, Dido flushed once more but the witch only smiled.

“Unfriendly, then,” she said in answer of her earlier question. “Never met a youth so incapable of speech, particularly not from your crowd. You little daisies seem prone to chatter.”

“I’m not like them,” Dido countered, careful to keep the pain out of her voice. Even if most of the girls her age were similarly staying home to study under the careful tutelage of their mothers, they still would receive letters from Hogwarts. They at least had the option.

“No,” the witch allowed, raising a brow. “I heard rumors about you. The Montessier lass.”

She bit back a scowl, not wanting to know how far rumors of her peculiarity had spread. Before Merrythought could offer another insult, or Dido could lose her temper, a sharp voice separated the fraying strands of their conversation.

“Dido!” Catriona was gliding across the room, having spotted her only daughter finally engaging with someone.

On that day, Catriona looked particularly fetching. She had always been considered one of the most beautiful witches of her generation, the second daughter of Levinas Rowle and his wife Ellis. Her hair was a soft golden yellow, her eyes a bright and shimmering blue, with a button nose and round cheeks. One of the few charms she had perfected kept her skin smooth and youthful. Her figure, though she was well in her middle years, remained quite trim. She wore a new dress of blue silk, under a delicately embroidered grey day robe, as was the fashion for witches of her class. The birds stitched onto the hem of her dress chased after the flowers on the embroidered robe, a rather dizzying scene that spoke of complicated magic and expensive taste.

Dido was similarly dressed, her mother having recently placed an order for the girl to receive a new wardrobe. Her gown, a dark emerald green, was looser than Catriona’s, as the witch argued that they would soon be seeing Dido shooting up. But her delicate outer robe, and matching silver slippers, were miniature versions of what her mother wore. The young girl appreciated it somewhat, knowing that Catriona was trying to send a clear message that she and Dido were a complimentary set. But a change of close did not rid Dido of the dirty and broken feeling she had been carrying around inside her.

The girl’s mother came to a stop just behind Dido’s shoulder, forcing the girl to look up in order to catch the expression on the witch’s face. To anyone else, Catriona might have appeared to be pleased and pleasing, her smile wide and her eyes bright. But Dido knew her mother very well, and knew that the particular stiffness in her smile was the result of some unpleasant emotion the witch was trying to stifle.

“Dido, I see that you have met Mistress Merrythought,” Catriona said through tight lips.

Her daughter could not tell yet with whom the witch was annoyed. Dido, for sitting on the floor and speaking to a stranger? Or the stranger, for daring to approach Dido and broaching a subject best left for private conversation, not a public salon?

“Dido, hm?” the strange witch kept her gaze on the young girl. “We had not gotten around to exchanging names quite yet.”

 _Well_ , Dido thought to herself, _that was not quite true._ Arabella Merrythought had, after all, given her name. Dido simply hadn’t repeated the favor, well aware that the strange witch had known who she was.

“Mistress Merrythought, this is my youngest child, Dido,” Catriona said formally with the proper incline to her head.

Dido shot a look at the stranger, as if almost expecting her to stick out her hand once more. Without anyone else noticing, Merrythought winked her grey eyes at the girl, before turning her attention back to Catriona.

“A pleasure, Mistress Montessier, Madame Montessier,” the witch said, with equal formality.

Dido could tell she meant it in rather a mocking way. The soft sound of Catriona’s slipper clad feet tapping against the floor beneath the hem of her dress told Dido all she needed to know. The witch was annoyed with this stranger. With good reason, too, for Dido was quite certain that Catriona had never had someone like this witch in her presence before.

“Mistress Merrythought has come from _America_ ,” a third voice offered gaily.

Celestina Selwyn had joined the group, her dark eyes glowing with the merriment of the scene. By the look Catriona shot her friend and ally, Dido knew her mother held this woman responsible for the presence of Merrythought in the Montessier house. There was little Catriona could say, though, for the Selwyn family held more influence in society than even the Montessier name did. Dido knew her father was angling for a match between the two families. At first, it might have been Dido herself to marry the Selwyn heir, Porteus, who was himself only two years Dido’s senior. With the present scandal, however, it seemed Onfroi might have to sacrifice his best political player and arrange a match between Guarin and one of the numerous Selwyn daughters.

“Madame Selwyn has been kind enough to offer her hospitality whilst I am in Britain,” Merrythought explained, confirming Dido’s suspicions about culpability.

 _America_ , thought Dido. _That explains the accent._

“Catriona, did I tell you what Mistress Merrythought works on?” Selwyn said in a conspiratorial whisper, as if Dido and Merrythought herself were not present.

If Catriona’s smile became any more forced, Dido was certain everyone else would be able to tell it was false. “No,” the witch said with false interest, “I do not believe you did.”

“I breed mandrakes,” the American witch told the gathered group.

Dido sniffed. She had not heard much about mandrakes, but she was fairly certain they were plants, not a creature one could reasonably claim to breed. Then again, her educated had not including such things as herbology or potions, as neither of her parents saw much of the point of it. Any potion they might need they could simply order from Diagon Alley, or a hedge witch somewhere in a muggle village.

It was becoming increasingly clear to the girl why her mother was so insulted by the presence of this working class witch. Catriona would never willingly allow someone who worked with their hands to be entertained during her salon, especially not after suffering through scandal these past few years. If her rivals could see her now, speaking to a humble plant witch as if they were equals, why how their tongues would wag! Perhaps because this witch was just as much an outside as Dido herself was, the young girl began to feel some sort of connection with her.

“That sounds _fascinating_ ,” Dido proclaimed with forced earnestness. “What do you breed them for?”

All the adults turned to look at her. Remembering her years of training, Dido refrained from shrinking back. Instead she focused on the grey eyes of the stranger, trying to pretend as if the scrutiny of her mother and her mother’s allies did not bother her at all.

“Healing, mostly,” Merrythought responded.

“Healing? So are you a healer, too?” Dido continued, finding some strange satisfaction in continuing to question the woman her mother so clearly did not wish for her to be engaging with.

Merrythought shook her head, chucking. “No, not me. I’ve no skill to stand over a cauldron. Rather be out in the dirt and earth, feel the sun on my skin and the wind in my hair.”

Having felt rather similarly herself at times, though without the desire for dirt and earth, Dido hummed sympathetically. It had driven her Korrigan mad, always escaping outside when she should have been indoors during lessons. Dido hadn’t meant any trouble from it, only that she knew the air outside was far better than the stuffiness of being trapped in a room.

“Mistress Merrythought has come to speak at the Herbology Convention in Ottery St. Catchpole,” Celestina offered gaily, “My own darling Archer insisted she stay with us while passing through. She’s quite famous in America, apparently.”

If Merrythought was insulted by Celestina’s discussing of her in such blunt terms without consideration for her presence, the witch gave no notice. Dido was quite certain that she had just as much practice hiding her thoughts as she did, for there was not even the faintest twitch to indicate that she was displeased.

“You must breed quite wonderful mandrakes,” Catriona said at an attempt at a compliment.

“I like to think so,” Merrythought shrugged.

Dido leaned forward, “I’ve never heard of a Herbology Convention. That sounds terribly exciting!”

The American witch snorted, “Not in the least, child, just a gathering of people who all think they’re too clever to talk with one another and prefer talking to their plants.”

Though Dido wanted to ask her why should would bother crossing the world if Merrythought had no desire to attend the conference, she knew her manners would not allow it. Instead she sent the witch a pleading look, and hoped she caught the meaning. It worked like a spell.

“It is not my own efforts that brought me ’cross the world,” Merrythought explained with a sigh, “Old Fox asked a favor of me, see, to bring him back some Harmal for him, and he knows the only one to get the good stuff from is Koshei, and he’ll certainly be in attendance. Never misses a chance to show off, that old braggart does.”

Dido had been nearly lost in all the names and things Merrythought referenced. Perhaps the witch took notice, for she gave the girl a sympathetic look.

“The potions instructor at Ilvermorny,” she continued slowly, by way of explanation, “he asked me to come as a favor to him, to pick up some supplies for his experiments.”

Catriona suddenly gripped her daughter’s shoulder, sharp nails digging into the soft material of her robe. Though she tried to shrug her off, the witch remained quite firm.

“Ilvermorny?” Dido repeated, brow furrowed.

Merrythought chuckled, “I keep forgetting how small we are, for all that we think ourselves big. You wouldn’t know where we send our children, would you? Ilvermorny, the school. Much like your Hogwarts. You’re of the age to go, you’re sure to know that one at least.”

Celestina sucked in a shocked breath the same time Dido felt a swooping sensation in her stomach. She was quite certain her mother was drawing blood. Across the room, the other girls were all giggling with each other, aware of exactly what hornets’ nest this woman had just trod upon.

“Ilvermorny,” Catriona whispered under her breath. Dido was quite certain her mother hadn’t even meant to say it. The sound of shock and fear in her voice was apparent to the young witch, and she found herself curiously uncurious to discover the meaning behind the feeling.

To her great surprise, Dido felt herself rising from her position on the floor. Her body had attained some sort of weightlessness, every nerve buzzing underneath her skin. Her own voice floated through the air, apologizing to Mistress Merrythought, to her mother and Celestina Selwyn. She excused herself with that same detached air, not even capable of registering what emotions or responses flickered across the faces of the people she was so rudely abandoning.


	4. The Girl on the Roof

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After discovering that there are wizarding schools outside of Hogwarts, Dido and her family must decide what path the girl will take.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for making it this far! Please leave comments or reviews below, if you decide you've something to say!

Dido left the room without a backward glance, barely aware of the direction in which her body was taking her. It was only after the heavy wooden doors of the library shut firmly behind her, startling her brother to look up from his books, that she realized she had gone to seek out Guarin. Having just finished his final year at school, their father had been assigning Guarin readings in preparation for his move into the Ministry within the next few months- Onfroi was still in the process of securing for his son and heir an appropriate position, which was only made harder by the scandal related to Dido. Guarin’s eyes were drawn tight with concern as he took in the sight of his only sister, standing in the doorway with the most peculiar expression on her face.

“Dido?” he asked hesitantly, “Is anything the matter? Aren’t you meant to be with Mama?”

“Are there,” she began instead, ignoring whatever it was he was saying, “Guarin, are there other wizard schools?”

He frowned, considering the question. It was not that he did not have an answer, necessarily, but rather that it would have a considerable impact on his sister. He was afraid that if he said the wrong thing, it would prompt her to doing something foolish, or give her some sort of unfair hope.

“Well,” he said slowly, “Yes, there are. A few, I believe.”

“Here in Britain?” she demanded, unable to stop herself from taking a few eager steps towards him.

He shook his head, “No, there is only Hogwarts for us, I am afraid.”

“Then where?”

Guarin sighed, realizing he would not be able to resolve her curiosity with vague responses. Dido might for the most part appear to be a good and willing child, but she had a dangerous habit of slipping her way past your defenses and managing to get her way. He had never truly been able to refuse her.

“Beauxbaton in France, that’s one,” he told her, trying to recall what his History of Magic professor had taught him. “I think Prussia has another, though I might be wrong on that. And then there are a few in the Orient, I believe, though Papa says they’re nothing of any repute.”

“And America?” she prompted, trying to recall the silly name that American witch had given her.

“Oh yes!” Guarin snapped his fingers, a rather ungentlemanly habit he had picked up from school friends, “I’ve heard of that one! Nothing near the reputation that us Old World schools have, I’ll tell you. Founded relatively recently, well of course it was, Ilvermorny, I believe.”

Something like understanding dawned in his eyes. Guarin turned to her, studying her suddenly. She looked the same as she had only moments before, but Dido knew he was looking at more than just her hair and clothing. He was looking at her potential, a skill he had recently learned from their father. The scrutiny in his gaze made her uncomfortable, as if it was not her own beloved brother before her. She felt herself shrinking in, her shoulders hunching somewhat and her pointed chin sinking towards her thin chest. Before he could say anything, she darted from the room.

But the words chased her down the hall, beckoning and whispering with such promise and pleasure, that Dido almost couldn’t image ever not knowing them before. _Ilvermorny. Beauxbaton._ Other places. Other options.

But no, she mustn’t get her hopes up, not again. It wouldn’t be like last time, would it? Last time she had been bolstered by the belief that, and the end of the day, she _belonged_ at Hogwarts. Her father had to be right, there had to be something bigger, darker, going on which kept her from her rightful place there. But now that foundational belief in herself and her power had been crushed, even the letters that beckoned with promise were so much threatening than ever before. Last time she couldn’t imagine failing. Now she knew the taste of failure too well.

Rather than be captured by those damning tendrils of hope once again, Dido raced away from the heavy gaze of her sympathetic brother, through halls stuffed with dead air and dull-eyed servants, blindly desperate for somewhere that her thoughts could not find her. She had half a mind to return to the nook behind the dragon clock, but that was not a place she went to go to be thoughtless; it was her place to ruminate, to listen and ponder and find answers to the questions in her head. No, the dragon was not the place to go.

It did not matter which window she used, and so she flung open the one closest at hand. Unlike the evening before, this window opened up to the grand gardens that decorated the landscape before the sprawling Montessier manor. As was the proper style these days, proper wizarding households maintained extensive grounds with carefully pruned bushed and flowerbeds: the Montessier’s were no exception to this rule. Their gardens were not nearly as fair as the Nott gardens, which Dido had the pleasure of visiting a few times in her life, nor were they as exotic as the Rosier family estates. Catriona had not much of a mind towards landscaping, and as such they kept their greens only as maintained as decorum dictated.

Unfortunately, decorum meant no high hedges or overgrown bushes for Dido to hide within. But that did not matter, for she never would have chosen such a place to run from her own thoughts. Gardens were for enjoying, not hiding. Instead, she began the long climb up.

It was not easy, but she was quite practiced. Though she was small, so much shorter than most of the girls her age!, she was quite strong, and her thin fingers managed to find grips in the stone face of the Montessier manor quite easily. She found the boost from the occasional window ledge, stone trim or (thankfully imported by a blissfully Gothic ancestor) one of the few gargoyles standing guard on the external façade of the manor. Eventually, with only minor sweating and no fumbling like her clumsy climbing through the trees the night before, Dido made it to the roof.

She always thought it stupid that Guarin might call her rabbit. If she were to be any sort of creature beside herself, surely she would be a squirrel. For she was small, but she was quick, and she found such a sense of calming satisfaction by finding herself up high.

Dido managed to wedge herself between the vaulted roof of a dormer window, and the hard angle of the main roof of the manor. She was lucky they weren’t just a little more Gothic, like the Ollivander’s, else there would be nothing preventing her from sliding to her death. But Dido knew of more than a dozen such little spots lining the roof of her home, and nestled down to feel the warm shingles. Even though the day was bright, and summer at it’s peak, from this high there was a definite chill in the air that Dido welcomed to rush through her head and clear out any straggling thoughts.

Yes, she thought to herself, she should have been a squirrel.

The day passed by quickly once she found her high place. She got to watch, rather dispassionately, as the visitors began to trickle off the property around lunchtime. Most had carriages brought for them, pulled by any number of creatures to demonstrate the wealth and power of their house. Some had just normal horses, a few utilized unicorns which, as far as any witch or wizard worth their salt would know, meant practically nothing as unicorns were not strong creatures capable of pulling for long distances. (“Better luck slapping a wand on a gelding’s head, and riding that!” her mother warned Dido once). The Selwyn’, ever the height of sophistication, somehow managed to wrangle griffins to pull their carriage (“But Celestina tells me it costs a _fortune_ , and they’ve got to switch them out for normal mounts once no-one else can see them,” Catriona confided.).

Dido had heard that some of the other members of society, those with less money to waste showing off in carriages, utilized something which allowed them to transport without any aid of magical device. And she knew her father worked in the Ministry, monitoring the usage of a form of travel involving fire. But whenever she tried to ask about these alternative methods to travelling, she would always be told to hush rather rudely. _Those things are for men_ , her mother would tell her. _We could never consider something so undignified!_ So instead, Dido watched all of her mother’s sophisticated friends cram themselves into small, wooden boxes attached to wheels that would then be pulled down dirt roads for however long it took. Sometimes, Dido wondered if her mother understood what undignified really meant.

She remained unbothered on the roof of the house: who would ever think to look for her there? And though she had half a thought that, perhaps, that peculiar Merrythought woman had looked back and seen her tucked away as she climbed into the Selwyn’s carriage, Dido managed to dismiss it. No-one squawked in alarm and flew up to carry her down to safety, after all. Midday turned to afternoon turned to evening. As the sun began to slip below the tree line, Dido managed to wonder if she should return inside, to sit at the family table for dinner, to pretend as if nothing was wrong. But she could not move. Rejoining her family would mean thinking about those impossible thoughts once again, to be caught between the crushing defeat of her failures and the seductive pull of opportunity. And for all that she wished she could have a different fate, she was quite tired of these games.

She did not move until the stars began to wake in the sky. There had not been a need to. It felt almost as if she had turned to stone, just like those occasional dotting gargoyles on the façade of the building, nothing more than a statue of a creature. But then, beyond the gentle whispering of the stars, she could feel the pull of worry from within the house. And so she stood, stretching her legs as she went, before sliding into the dormer window just before her.

The attic. Dido rarely visited the attic. There was always too much motion, between the elves and the family of matagot that could get quite territorial of you came too close. Dido never minded the creatures, and they took care not to mind her, but their presence still made the attic feel to used for it to count as a high, calm place. So she walked with gentle feet across the wide wooden planks that made up the attic floor, dancing around various trunks and stored furniture, and keeping her eyes peeled for the telltale flash of fur that would warn her a matagot had decided to take issue with her presence. Regardless of if she saw them, she knew they would be there: they always knew when someone entered their domain. She wondered if anyone might consider training them to become guard-animals, if they put their mind to it, for they could be quite vicious when provoked.

This time, she made it to the stairs unmolested, and did her best to hurry back into the normal levels of the manor she might be expected to occupy. It would not do for her parents to discover just how many places she made her regular haunts when they were not looking. The attic was certainly unsuitable, tucked between crates in the cellar where even the brownies couldn’t find her would certainly be scandalous, and if they knew just how much time she spent in the bushes just beside the dovecotes, she would certainly be whipped for it. While it was no secret that she was something of a gloomy child, at least she assumed the household figured she did much of her glooming within her own bedroom.

An arm reached out suddenly and blocked the way before she could make it to that final stairwell leading from the servant’s floor to one it might not be too scandalous to be found on. She stopped suddenly, a hairsbreadth away from the fabric of his sleeve. Dark eyes turned to glare mutinously up at his face.

“We’ve been looking for you,” Guarin snapped, the stress of her absence making his words come out in a sharper tone than he might have originally intended.

Dido was in a fine mood to reply. “I didn’t want to be found,” she countered harshly.

He was practically buzzing with anxiety, a perfect match to Dido’s cold emptiness. She already felt the tendrils of his thoughts affecting what had been a practically peaceful evening. Her scowl deepened, and she rose up on her toes so that she might be at least half-a-head closer to her much older brother.

“Are you keeping me trapped here for the rest of the night, or might I go to bed now?” she asked.

He narrowed his pale blue eyes, unmoving. When she took a step closer, he managed to keep his position, forcing her to halt her advances once more or else run directly into the mass of him. Even if he were slender compared to most young men his age, Guarin still far outweighed her, and in a pushing contest she knew she would lose. But she very desperately wanted to push him out of the way, to escape and avoid the boiling conflict which she knew was coming, even if she was not yet entirely certain why.

It took half a thought, and Guarin suddenly lost his balance on the top of the stairs. The steps themselves vanished, turning into a smooth incline that sent Guarin sliding down to the landing, an incredulous look on his face as his feet went out from beneath him and he hit the ground hard. Dido remained perched above him, balanced on the points of her toes, arms outstretched on either side of her like the wings of a bird about to take off. At some point during the day, she had lost those loose slippers her mother had paid so much to commission, and her bare feet poked out from the dirty hem of her once-pristine robe.

She was about to take the stairs at a graceful slide, planning on leaping over the still-stunned prostrate form of her brother on the ground, and take off running towards her rooms, but the untimely arrival of their parents froze her in place. Catriona and Onfroi rushed around a corner, likely having heard their precious son and heir collapse, or were otherwise notified by some creature in the home. Onfroi was dressed as he usually was, elegant wizards robes over the knee-length trousers and hose as popular in France. Catriona had changed from her day-robes into a more casually evening outfit, and wore her golden hair loose from the rather painfully intricate powdered curls of day-wear. They both looked worn and frustrated.

“Guarin, put that to rights _immediately_ ,” Onfroi boomed, glaring at the boy. He still hadn’t found it within himself to address his daughter since Catriona’s putting her foot down several weeks before.

The boy likely meant to protest that he hadn’t been the one to magic the stairs, but at the sight of their father’s glower, he closed his mouth and struggled to pull his wand from his sleeve. Catriona also frowned, but her gaze was fixated on her daughter at the top of the stairs. Without waiting for Guarin or Onfroi to put the incline to rights, she held out her arms to Dido in a rather telling fashion. Something cold inside of Dido melted when her eyes met the worried blue of her mother, and the young girl took a step forward, sliding down to land into her mother’s embrace.

The older witch always smelled so pleasant. Even though Dido had spent countless hours by her mother’s side, knew the names and components of her scented potions, memorized any fragrance that occurred naturally in the manor, still Dido could not name what it was Catriona smelled like. She cast any curiosity aside, burrowing her face into the fabric of her mother’s evening robes.

“There you are, little Linnet. You missed dinner,” Catriona hummed unhappily, “And your friends left without you saying goodbye.”

Onfroi was grumbling behind them, Guarin hastily climbing to his feet, but for the moment only daughter and mother existed together. Dido didn’t know what she would do without her mother who, despite all the troubles and hardship she brought upon their heads, seemed to have unending patience and love for her. In her mother’s arms, for just a moment, Dido hoped that maybe everything would be fine, that perhaps the dread she had been hiding from all day was nothing more than a cloud in the sky. And then all too soon, the hug ended, and Catriona pulled back.

“Go back to your room now,” Catriona ordered softly, “I’ll send up something to eat.”

Dido did not move, only stared down at her dirty toes peeking out from beneath the hem of her robes. “I’m not hungry,” she mumbled.

A firm hand took hold of her chin, directing her gaze upwards. Catriona had the pale blue eyes of the Rowle family, her name before she married Onfroi Montessier. Neither Dido nor Guarin had much of a relationship with their mother’s side of the family, for there was something of a divide between Catriona’s family and Onfroi which both Dido and Guarin knew enough not to comment on. While Guarin had inherited these pale blue eyes, Catriona always said that it was Dido who looked the most like a Rowle. “It’s that white gold hair,” she explained to her children once, “My grandfather had hair just like it.” Her grandfather’s hair, her aunt’s nose, the wide eyes that Catriona remembered on the face of a nameless cousin. Catriona claimed she couldn’t ever get homesick, when looking at her daughter.

“You’ll not grow if you don’t eat,” Catriona chastised her daughter, not unkindly, turning her around to face her male relatives, “Now bid them good evening, or I’ll think all your manners have abandoned you.”

Dido mumbled something of a parting phrase, bobbing down into a shallow curtsey. She expected to be released like a rabbit from a trap, but Catriona held her arm fast when Onfroi sent his wife a sharp look.

“The matter is not yet settled, wife,” he reminded her.

Catriona sent him a challenging look, titling her head to the side in a dangerously familiar pose to her children. “I do believe the matter was settled when I declared it so.”

Onfroi did not back down from the challenge. He took a threatening step towards her, fist clenched at his side, and both wife and daughter flinched back. The wizard paused, appearing satisfied by the reminder of his dominance over the family. When Dido glanced up at him, he was grinning with cold green eyes.

“And how could that possibly be so?” he asked softly. “Have you the authority to make such a call? When it is your daughter who has caused us such shame? No, I say the matter is not yet settled until I have decided so.”

Dido shifted anxiously from foot to foot, her father’s barb stinging painfully, though she knew better than to show it. Besides, this was nothing more than the things he had already been saying about her behind closed doors, all of which she could overhear behind the dragon clock. This was simply the first time he spoke such in her presence. But Catriona did not handle the insult so calmly, by the sharp intake of breath and the way her posture grew rigid.

Guarin, poor boy, seemed entirely lost. He had not spent nearly enough time in this fractured household to understand the delicate position between her parents that Dido now occupied. He did not know the vicious words bandied about the house, and the struggle for power between mother and father. Father wanted prestige, he wanted to protect the family reputation. Mother did not believe Dido as capable as she was renowned to be, and wanted to keep her safe and sheltered at home. So Guarin cast his eyes between parents, confusion and anxiety clear on his face.

“And you have decided to send our daughter across the world?” Catriona shrieked.

Both Dido and Guarin winced, exchanging glances. This was not a conversation they were meant to hear.

“It seems the only option!” Onfroi thundered in response.

Dido managed to wriggle free from her mother’s grasp, pressing her back to the wall so she could take in the scene. Thankfully, her parents were too caught up in their argument to notice her movement. But Guarin did, his eyes tracking her, and the manner in which she appeared suddenly invisible to their parents. His eyes narrowed.

“Why not France?” Catriona demanded, “Why not Prussia? Why would you resign her to a life so far removed from us, where only by Merlin’s grace could we know when we might see her again?”

“We’ve no contact in Prussia, you know that,” Onfroi countered through gritted teeth, “And to ally ourselves with France now would be just as foolish as keeping her here. There’s war brewing on the horizon, and we’ve no way of knowing which manner the Ministry will intervene.”

Catriona took a step forwards, red spots on her cheeks, “And you are certain this is for her good, not simply to hide her away as if to erase your failures as a father and husband?”

The resulting crack in the air coincided with Catriona staggering to the side, a hand to her cheek, while Onfroi towered over her. The movement had been too quick for Guarin to track with his own eyes, but Dido understood it without a second’s hesitation. Only when Catriona stood upright once more, did Guarin see the red imprint of his father’s hand branded upon the side of her face. He gasped, but the sound died in his throat when Dido sent him a warning look.

“What do you think, daughter?” Onfroi spat, not taking his eyes off his wife.

Dido shuddered at being addressed in such a tone, and did not immediately respond. Only then did Onfroi look at her. For the first time in weeks, his gaze was not filled with fury and resentment, but instead with the glimmering eyes of a spider approaching a fly in a web.

He continued, “Shall you remain here, sheltered under your mother’s bosom, or do you wish to learn, to pursue the education that has thus been denied to you? Do you wish to be the shame of the family, or to prove to the world how bright you truly are?”

Dido could only half make sense of the argument between her parents, but at her father’s words something desperate began to whisper in the back of her mind. She might finally have a chance to win back her father’s affection. She might finally be good enough for him.

“I want to learn,” she whispered, trying to ignore the crestfallen face of her mother. She knew this was the right choice, the choice her father wished her to make.

Smiling widely, Onfroi gazed upon his wife, “It is settled. I’ll write to Bleven, he is the one who’ll know who to contact. Within the month, we’ll have our answer.”

With that, the man swept out of the narrow corridor, back towards the main residence of the Montessier manor. Guarin, with a torn look on his face, decided to follow after the man. There were still things he did not understand that he hoped his father might clarify. That left only Dido and her mother hovering near one another. Catriona’s perfume filled the space, at once comforting and tormenting Dido.

“Do you know what you’ve agreed to?” Catriona asked her daughter in a soft whisper, eyes unfocused and staring at the distant wall.

 _I’ve agreed to making my father happy_ , she thought resolutely. _I have agreed to giving myself the opportunity to prove I’m not a disappointment, not a failure._

But she did not speak these words. Instead, Dido faded away, her mother not even glancing at her long enough to realize that the child had gone.


	5. The Girl and the Seven Trunks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With her choice made, Dido must now prepare for the fate she decided upon. Even if she hadn't entirely realized exactly what that choice would bring.

“America,” Dido repeated timidly.

Her father waved a distracted hand, “Yes, daughter, _America._ You’re to leave as soon as I’ve arranged passage, within two weeks, I presume, and will begin your studying there at once.”

They had gathered there, for tea Onfroi had ostensibly claimed, though as it had been months since the four of them did anything as a family, Dido had approached the parlor apprehensively. She had been right in thinking this was all a cover for one of Onfroi’s dramatic declarations, but still stunned that the declaration had been about her.

Three weeks ago, Onfroi had asked her if she wished to learn. In the ensuing time, neither he nor Catriona had spoken of the issue aloud, at least, not where Dido could hear. And, as she had taken to practically sleeping behind the dragon clock, she was quite certain even alone, neither of her parents discussed the issue.

“America,” she said again, at a whisper.

While Onfroi pretended not to hear her, Catriona snorted in a very unladylike manner from the other side of the parlor. Catriona had done a remarkable job at making her displeasure known without ever once speaking a word aloud. Frigid silences, cold stares, and a refusal to take meals with the family spoke louder than any of her normal tactics of pouting and manipulating. And by the stiffening of Onfroi’s shoulders, Dido could tell that his wife’s behavior was, indeed, starting to get on his nerves.

The parlor was a comfortable place, designed for relaxed conversations with the family away from the public eye. Catriona had done much work to redecorate it after her marriage to Onfroi, and it balanced modern taste with casual comfortability, which Dido did appreciate. But the room did not feel so comfortable now, when the lines of war were drawn. Catriona sat in a hardback chair in a far corner, staring out the window and refusing to look at her family. Onfroi dominated the room in a large armchair with the fireplace directly behind him. In winter months, it would have made him a shadowed and imposing figure. She and Guarin shared a chaise, her brother lounging while she sat as straight as her mother.

 _I hadn’t realized_ , she wanted to say, _that I was agreeing to leaving you all. I hadn’t realized I would go so far away_.

But if she said that, she would be proving them right, when they told her she wasn’t made to be a witch. Her mother would win, and Dido would stay at home to be gawped and gawked at whenever she was allowed into public.

 _I told him I wanted to learn_ , she reminded herself firmly. This was it, her chance to learn, and she wouldn’t do anything that might threaten that future, not when there was so much riding on it.

Guarin clearly did not have the reservations for speech that his female relatives did. He sat halfway between mother and father, the only one bothering to drink the tea, as if he had not yet realized what this meeting was truly about. Dido had half a thought of worry for the delicate china cup in his hand as she took note of his trembling fingers.

“Dido is to go to America?” he gasped, “But for how long?”

“How long did your education last, boy?” Onfroi demanded, “Far as I’ve been told, it’s the same there. Artimer Bleven arranged the entire thing for me, wrote to the school there and ensured they knew from what a prestigious heritage you come from, and that it would bring them much acclaim to accept a student such as yourself.”

Guarin had only listened to the first part of his father’s rant. “ _Seven years_?”

For once, Onfroi realized he had said something wrong and decided to recant, rather than stand firm. He paled under his copper hair, glancing once at his fuming wife, before turning back to his son.

“Well, no,” he blustered, “Of course she’ll be coming home for holidays. It’s school, Guarin, not a prison!”

“It’s _exile_ ,” Catriona snapped in her corner, not looking at any of them.

Dido tried to pretend like she didn’t believe her mother’s words but, in her heart, she had a sinking suspicion they were true. Her father did not mean it, when he spoke of providing her an opportunity. He wanted her out of sight, out of mind, while he prepared for Guarin’s future.

 _Fine,_ she thought to herself. _But I will do so well that he cannot help but to be glad I am his child._

“I look forward to starting my education,” she spoke the words aloud, knowing her father needed to hear them so that he could remind himself that she was a good, obedient daughter. Hopefully, they would appease her mother as well.

“But-,” Guarin still did not seem to understand, “It’s so far away. How is she even to get there? Where will she stay? Do we even-.”

“Quit prattling,” Onfroi interrupted, glaring from his seat to where his heir sat on the chaise. “She will travel as witches should, by boat. Bleven has even found a suitable companion for her journey, for which we should be very grateful.”

 _Boat_. Dido tried not to become too excited by the idea. She had never seen a boat before, except in books, for their manor was too far inland and there had never been a good enough reason to travel to the coast. But she had read about them, in the many stories and novels her mother left laying about. Boats were places of great excitement, of high seas adventures, of fresh air and wind in her hair. Dido loved nothing more than fresh air.

When it looked as if Guarin would continue stuttering, Dido placed a gentle hand on his arm. At least, she made sure it appeared to be a gentle motion, though in reality she was gripping the skin of her brother’s arm as tightly as she could through the fabric of his robes. Her brother squawked a brief protest, though by the cutting look their father directed his way, finally realized he was being ordered to remain silent.

And thus, the entire family fell into the uncomfortable silence of anger, resentment, and anxiety.

Onfroi broke the silence first, as was his right as head of the family. “Daughter, wife, it seems to me you have quite a task ahead of you, arranging for travel. You are excused to begin.”

The man didn’t even bother to couch his order in a tone of request, and Dido leapt to her feet in order to properly respond. Even though she took her time getting to her feet, hissing as she did so, even Catriona obeyed. She swept from the room in a dazzling display of pink silk and perfumed air, leaving Dido to stumble along after her. The woman was clearly in a temper, for she set a grueling pace as she stomped through the halls that Dido struggled to match. And then, just as suddenly as she had moved, Catriona stopped, a hand touching the wall beside her.

Startled, Dido froze in the hallway, studying the figure of her mother before her. They were almost to Dido’s room, which the girl had been certain had been Catriona’s original destination. Where else would they go to take stock of Dido’s belongings? Where else would they begin the process of packing to travel across the world? But Catriona seemed stuck, a hand to her chest, a hand to the wall, and not moving save for a quivering of the air around her.

“Mother-?” Dido began hesitantly.

The woman whirled around to face her daughter. To Dido’s horror, there was a sprinkling of tears in Catriona’s blue eyes.

“Do you want to leave me?” her mother asked in a trembling voice. “Does the idea of being parted from me please you so much?”

Dido was startled, unsure how to respond, “Mama, it isn’t like that.”

Catriona stepped closer, her hands gripping Dido’s shoulders. Though the woman was clearly distressed, her hold on the girl was not rough, but a soft caress.

“Why can you not be happy here, with me? Am I not enough for you, Dido?”

“Mama,” Dido was choking on her own tears now, and wrapped her arms around Catriona’s waist, “I love you dearly. But I do want to learn, even at the cost of leaving home.”

Catriona pressed her cheek to Dido’s head, holding her tighter. “I could have given you a most blessed life,” she whispered, but the words were not a criticism.

The girl could tell that her mother knew in her heart that Dido was set on her choice, and that it would not do to try and take a stance against her. And the moment Catriona released her only daughter, looking her square in the eye, Dido could see a new sort of quiet determinism in her mother’s face. There was a gleam of that familiar pride, and an energy around her mother that hinted at the strength behind the façade of an elegant woman, dedicated mother, and faithful wife. Catriona had something of a hardness inside of her, one that was so rarely revealed to her children, but one that Dido took great comfort in now.

“If you’re to go,” Catriona told her fiercely, “I will not have you go without my love and blessing. Anything that you need, anything that you want, I will ensure that you shall bring with you to the Americas, so that you want for nothing, and know always of my affection for you.”

Dido was touched by this statement. Her mother was not a particularly affectionate woman, save the few hugs she gave her daughter when the child appeared particularly distraught, but she showed a great deal of her affection through material things. The new wardrobe she had ordered for Dido a few months back. The lavishness of Guarin’s rooms. While Dido had never truly asked for much from her mother, she was glad to see suddenly that there was no limit to what her mother was willing to provide for her.

“Come,” Catriona took Dido’s hand, and managed a smile, “We must begin by inventorying what you have.”

Dido and her mother spent the rest of the day that way, poking through her wardrobe, trying to track down any object the girl could claim some sentimental attachment to. While at first Dido had been concerned that Catriona’s declaration to send Dido packing with everything she possessed had worried the girl, thinking of an endless sea of trunks to be carried, she was relatively relieved to realize she truly did not own that many things. At first, Catriona seemed surprised by this. Then a little disheartened.

“We’ll have to change this when you’re back,” she muttered under her breath, taking stock of the measly dozen non-clothing related items Dido had. Combs, the notes her father made her take on all her lessons and failings, a few books unrelated to lessons, and a singular doll with a worn silk dress and threadbare strings of yellow hair. Catriona stroked the head of the doll absently, eyes unfocused.

In truth, the girl had been too busy learning to have ever had much of a childhood. Her father had kept her under a strict regimen, ordered her every waking moment to be devoted to the development of her natural talent for wandless magic, and more often than not forgot to even acknowledge that she was no more than a child. The doll had been a gift from Catriona to her daughter on her third birthday, and was the last such childish thing Dido could remember receiving. When new, the doll would wink and wave at her, but the charms had long worn off and now it did nothing but sit on her bed and keep her company. And though it distressed her mother to realize how little she possessed, still Dido was pleased at how easy this trip would be.

It took only a few days for Catriona to rectify what she saw as years of failing to take proper care of her child. New packages and parcels were delivered to the manor every day, containing shoes, quills, capes, jewelry, childish books, an entirely new family of dolls that looked suspiciously like their own, rolls upon rolls of parchment, and even a small white kitten. It was to this final arrival that Onfroi resurfaced with an annoyed look on his face.

“I doubt she’ll be allowed a pet,” he growled, “They aren’t so civilized there as Hogwarts. Besides, that little creature doesn’t look like it would last the trip.”

Dido, laying on her stomach and holding a string up for the kitten to bat around at, did not look up as she asked, “How long will the journey be? I’ve no idea what a trip to America will entail.”

“In this season, I hope for nothing more than five weeks,” Onfroi informed her, “Else you’ll be late for the term.”

“Well then,” Catriona interrupted them curtly, carrying an entirely new basket of goods for mother and daughter to sort through, “I suppose you best arrange for passage, and Dido and I hurry to finish packing.”

Though still on edge with one another, Dido was pleased that her parents were attempting to agree with one another now. Though, (and she was entirely not supposed to know this) Onfroi was yet to be invited to share his wife’s room since their original fight. She figured that eventually, likely once she was sent off, they would be able to forgive one another entirely and ease whatever tension remained in the household.

Though it was not only her parents who were causing a stir. The house elves seemed to be entirely in shock and distress at the news that their young mistress was leaving, and whenever Catriona or Dido had to call for one of them, they also had to put up with a great deal of weeping and hand wringing. After a dozen or so of such experiences, the two decided to forage on without the help of the elves. It gave Catriona a chance to pull out her wand and practice some of the older charms her mother had taught her before her marriage to Onfroi.

“I think this will fold everything neatly,” Catriona told her daughter with a crease between her eyebrows.

But the words she uttered, and the wave of her wand, did little more than make Dido’s stockings knot themselves together. She spent a good fifteen minutes trying to detangle the mess without tearing the delicate fabric. It was shortly after this that she decided enough was enough.

“Mama,” Dido began slowly after near five days of incessant shopping, “I do believe this is plenty.”

They were standing in what little space remained in Dido’s room. Much of the floor was now taken up by seven large trunks, all of which were filled with things Dido had not owned a week ago. Most of which she had never seen before, and likely would not until she arrived at school. Catriona, for her part, seemed startled by this announcement. She gently set down the cranberry colored dress recently arrived from Diagon Alley, to be worn under her blue school robes, she had been told, and give Dido a measured glance.

“I’ve no idea what you’ll be experiencing there,” her mother admitted calmly, “Where even is this school? What is the weather like? Will you be able to purchase your things during the year, or are you expected to bring it all now. Which reminds me, your father needs to set up an account for you to use as you need when you get there, how much do you think you’ll be spending? I’m sure I can convince him to double that, just to be safe and-.”

Dido left the room at that point, realizing that any conversation with her mother would be pointless. The woman was clearly to engaged in her own mind to realize that she really had done all that was needed. Dido wasn’t the sort of person to bring an entire house with her whenever she went anywhere, truly, and did a girl even need twelve pairs of shoes?

If she had not felt the slightest change in the air that warned of a nearby presence, Dido would have run right into her brother. As it was, she only had half a second to step to the side before Guarin came barreling down the hall. He raced past Dido, and then came to a sudden halt, turning around to stare at her.

“There you are!” he called brightly, cheerfully. The happiness in his voice was brittle, forced, and Dido could tell that he was trying his hardest not to cry.

Besides the house elves, it had been Guarin who had taken Dido’s departure the hardest. Onfroi was almost giddy at times with the prospect of arranging a future for his daughter, and Catriona had the packing to distract her. Guarin, on the other hand, could do nothing but sit and lament that so soon after finishing school, his sister was to be taken away from him. The gloomy air around him forced Dido to spend as much of her time avoiding her mother, to similarly avoiding her brother. But unlike their mother, Guarin had a better sense for where to find Dido and all her hiding places. He’d even found her on the roof the other night, thus spoiling her last secret place forever.

“I’ve a present for you,” Guarin told her as he trotted up to her.

“Oh?” Dido asked, a sinking feeling in her stomach.

She was expecting him to pull out an enchanted locket with a family portrait inside, a bracelet woven from his hair, or some other ridiculously sentimental piece. She had not been expecting him to hold out a rather ratty looking satchel. Dido took it gingerly, as if awaiting a fairy to burst out and sing to her about Guarin’s undying affection for his sister.

Guarin chuckled at the look on her face, “It won’t bite, Dido, I promise.”

She sent him a scathing look in response, but still did not look inside. Sighing, Guarin snatched it back from her and wrenched the open apart, allowing her to peer inside. What she saw stunned her. Stacks of books, more than should have been physically possible to fit inside the bag. Now her hands shook for an entirely different reason when she accepted it once more.

“Papa said the trip could take five weeks, didn’t he? And if anymore, then you might miss some lessons, and I know how much you would hate to be behind,” Guarin explained, “So I’m giving you all my old schoolbooks. I could always get more, if I need to, and this way you’ll have something to do while you’re at sea.”

Dido surprised both herself and her brother by throwing her arms around Guarin and hugging him tight. Though startled at first, Guarin quickly relaxed himself into the embrace. Though it concerned him to feel how light and thin her bones felt beneath her day robes, he tried to focus instead on the warmth of holding his sister.

“Thank you,” Dido managed to say, “This is perfect.”

She eventually managed to extricate herself from Guarin’s hold, promising to store the satchel somewhere safe where their mother wouldn’t find it. And she did, finding a small space at the bottom of one of the trunks, which she then quickly covered by handfuls of fabric. Then, before anyone else could notice her, Dido made her escape from the house.

Guarin had found all of her hiding places. Well, except one. She very rarely went beyond the hedge that bordered their property, for it was a long walk and she was much more likely to be spotted crossing the neatly trimmed grass than she would be if she were holed up on a tree branch somewhere. But today, she decided the risk was worth it. All this bustle about packing, and school, and traveling far from home, made Dido feel only a little as if she were suffocating. The only remedy was somewhere with clean air, and bright light to warm her pale skin.

The hedge was no problem, once she reached it. Shoeless and with nothing in her hands to distract her, she managed to push through a weak spot in the green wall, arriving on the other side with only mused hair and a few leaves clinging to her skirt as sign of what she had done. Then, with a skip in her step and a grin on her face, she followed the hedge until it dipped down at the edge of a little creek.

The creek ran through their property, ducking under the hedge and meandering through the side of the garden. But it was tamed on that side of the wall, carefully maintained to prevent weeds from growing on the banks, the rocks chosen to be symmetrical and beautiful, the water charmed to burble and sing at the perfect volume. Dido did not want artificial, she wanted this, the real thing. Knee high water, freezing to the touch, running with wild abandon across a haphazard jumble of rocks, stones and fallen branches. Lifting the hem of her skirt, Dido wet her feet, loving the immediate chill that raced through her body.

She danced her way upstream, not minding the sprinkling of water that wet her clothing, not caring for anything other than the brisk wind and the feel of wildness around her. Eventually she found her favorite spot, a large rock jutting out into the water with just enough dry space to sit and dangle her legs in the water. There were a few trees about which, if it were any warmer outside, Dido might escape to, to cool down in the shade. But for now she was content to watch the way the water distorted the images of her toes, elongating and shortening them as the ripples spread.

“ _I would follow you my dears, if you’d just show me how_ ,” Dido sang to her toes, “ _You have wings to carry you, but I am to the ground_.”

She’d never really understood the song, but her Korrigan had sang it to her many times in her youth. Dido had thought in her youth that it had been about flying with birds, but as she grew older she became less certain. _When I have trees to block my view, and clouds to block the sky—these are not real things to you, I know you wonder why._ Why wouldn’t trees be real to a bird? But still, the tune was pretty, and she loved to remember her dear, sweet Korrigan, who had left the family shortly before her father took her under his wing.

It was not until a shadow cast itself in front of her eyes that Dido realized she had not been alone. A deep and oily voice finished the verse for her.

“ _I would follow you my dears, follow anywhere. If only I had the wings to get there._ ”


	6. The Girl and the Seer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before Dido can leave Britain, she is visited by a strange man who makes odd and ominous predictions about her future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> This is a shorter chapter, apologies for that, but I hope it is intriguing! Thank you for making it this far.
> 
> Cheers!

Dido leapt to her feet, nearly tripping over the hem of her skirt and tumbling headfirst into the creek. At the last second she righted herself, and stared up with clenched fists at the person who approached her. But with the sun in her eyes, she could see little more than shadow. She took some comfort in knowing that they stood on the other side of the creek from her, keeping them more than an arm’s length away from her.

“That’s a fairy song, child,” the voice told her in a warning tone. “Shan’t go singing it, ’less some think you’d be inviting trouble.”

“I’m not afraid of fairies,” Dido told the person resolutely, “They aren’t real, not like in the stories. There are goblins, and pixies, and elves, but there aren’t _fairies._ ”

The person laughed at that, and sat down on their side of the creek. She could see them better now, and knew them to be a strange man she had never seen before. His skin was a dark color, with coal-black shaggy hair falling into his eyes. He looked to be somewhere between Guarin and Onfroi’s age, though it was hard to tell, Dido never having seen a person like him before. He grinned up at her with gleaming white teeth, and for a moment Dido felt her vision go a bit fuzzy. The image of the man flickered, replacing itself with that of a shaggy creature, covered entirely in dark hair, with long ears on either side of it’s face. But no, she blinked, and it was just the man.

“Who are you?” Dido asked, rather rudely.

He did not stop grinning, “I am I. Who else would I be?”

“I shouldn’t be alone with you,” she said, ignoring his nonsense words. “I’ll be taking my leave.”

That was the proper thing to do. Dido didn’t really know any men, for her mother said that it was improper to be introduced to them without just cause, and whenever her father brought her out to perform as a child, he hadn’t bothered introducing her first. Neither had any of the witches and wizards from the Ministry when they tested her, for that matter. But as she turned to go, the man called out after her, forcing her to stop.

“I am a seer!” he said.

Dido hesitated. She knew she should go back into the house; she knew she should flee someone strange and dangerous. But she could not help her curiosity. Mama had only mentioned seers before with that excited whisper of someone who pretended not to believe in such things. Even most of the books she had read talked about seers in a derisive fashion. Slowly, she faced him again. He had not moved from his position on the bank, and that smile remained.

“It’s been revealed to me that you’re soon to depart, and it will be long before you return here,” he said, “And I’ve something to say to you before you go.”

“Why?” Dido asked, suspiciously. “How do you know all this?”

The seer shrugged, “There are things that I know, that I don’t remember not knowing. How could I know how I came to know it?”

“Stop that,” Dido frowned. “If you’re just going to talk nonsense, I’d rather not speak with you at all. Seer or not.”

“Fine,” he sighed, rolling his eyes.

She sat back down, legs crossed and elbows on her knees so that she might hold her head up. He really was the strangest person she had ever seen before. It wasn’t just his dark skin, or the unkempt styling of his hair. It was his very posture; it was the loose and ragged clothing he wore as if fashion did not matter to him. He hadn’t a robe in sight, even though everyone knew that public appearances demanded such a thing. The cotton shirt was untucked from his trousers, which fell all the way to his ankles before ending with a ragged hem. And his feet were bare! Of course, hers were too, but she had a purpose for bare feet. She could think of no similar reason for him.

“So you’re a seer,” she said, rolling the word around in her mind. “Do all seers look like you?”

He cocked a brow, and said in a mocking tone, “Do all little girls look like you?”

She scowled, but did not respond.

Knowing he had won the fight, he let out a low chuckle, reclining back on his elbows so that he could tip his face to the sky. Dido could see now that his hair was not entirely black, but streaked with strands of grey which absorbed the sunlight as he basked in the glow.

“Prove you’re a seer,” Dido challenged, unwilling to back down. It must have been her father’s bravery, urging her on, and not her mother’s kind sensibility.

He cast her an amused look, “How might one prove that? If I speak the future, you will not know until it passes that which I speak of is true. Seeing is trusting, and trusting is believing without proof.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Dido countered firmly. “Believing blindly is no better than not believing at all, if you have no reason for either. Surely there is something you can do?”

“What would you suggest?” he asked, spreading his fingers wide. “Shall I guess an animal in your thoughts? Seeing does not work in that manner.”

She frowned, thinking. Eventually she said, “Tell me something that will come to pass soon enough that it can be reasonable, but peculiar enough that I’ll know it was not simply a guess. And until that time comes, I’ll neither believe nor disbelieve you, as I’ve not enough information to judge your skill on.”

He looked her up and down, considering her carefully. “You’re a clever one, and speak with a silver tongue, don’t you?”

She smiled, though it was a rather smug look and not a pleasant one. Clearly, the seer could find no reason to argue against her statement, which seemed to annoy him. But he did not protest.

“Fine,” he sighed, “In three days’ time, when your ship departs, it will be leaving with one more and one less passenger as expected.”

 _One more and one less_. Dido committed those words to memory, disregarding all else in his statement. She felt a sense of excitement, rather like when her father gave her a new spell to learn. Riddles and puzzles delighted her to no end, and this seemed like a rather tricky one to solve. As if sensing her excitement, the wind picked up around them, sending tendrils of fine white-gold hair dancing into Dido’s face. She ignored them.

“Grand,” she said instead, grinning once more. “We’ve our agreement, and if you’ve anything else to say…?”

“When it comes time to ask your question,” he said, to no-one in particular, “Ask for life. It will be hard, and you will come to hate yourself for it, but this is the question you need to ask.”

“Why?” Dido challenged. “When?”

She did not question what he said was true, for she found exciting to imagine that a seer had some sort of prophecy for her future. But she would be damned if she did not try, at the very least, to make some sense of his gibberish so that she could understand her future better.

But the man only shrugged once more, “I cannot tell you when that fork in the road appears, only that there will be a fork, and the path you take shall be to the left. Life, left, it does not matter.”

“Ask for life?” she repeated, slowly. “Well, that seems simple enough.”

He nodded, still not looking her way. Dido almost wanted to jump up and down, to get his attention. Instead she drifted closer to the creek water once more, bending down to let her fingers dance along the surface. After all, she did her best thinking out in places like this.

“Why should I ask for life, if I should hate myself for it?” she murmured, not expecting the man to answer.

But he did. “You’d hate yourself more for doing else,” he warned her.

“Really?” she raised a brow.

He nodded, “Your life is drenched in anger, regret, and fire. And though it burns quite prettily, there’s no doubt that such a heat is uncomfortable at best. What I have offered you is more joy than any other path could take, but a great sorrow that comes with it.”

“Then maybe I shouldn’t chose that path. Is the sorrow really worth it?” she queried.

His smile in response was haunting, “Oh, you will think so, in the end. And I look forward to seeing the fires of your revenge burning.”

Now she was frightened. Sorrow, anger, fire, revenge. These were words she had never truly thought of in association to herself. Even though there had been some challenges in her life, Dido considered herself a calm and rational person. She’d only ever shed a few tears over the Hogwarts incident, and only at the most desperate of times. As a general rule, she rarely felt anything stronger than the joy of running free through the fields, or the dread of listening to her parents argue. But even then, these emotions never took hold of her in such a way that this seer was describing.

She decided then, regardless of what this man said, that she would not take the path he was advising. There was nothing in it for her besides pain, and there was no chance that she would choose such pain over something stable, something secure.

He seemed to be hearing her thoughts, for the seer rolled his shoulders, and cast his face to the sky. Any further questions she had seemed frozen in her throat, for she feared the answers he might give. And, more to the point, he did not seem willing to offer any further information. Grumbling to herself, Dido chose once more to leave the creek and return home. Better be safe than sorry, should a member of the family or staff see her fraternizing with a stranger. But she did manage to call out a goodbye before going, to which he only waved a hand in response. The seer seemed content to remain by the creek, enjoying the sunlight.

“Another thing!” he shouted after her, when she was far enough away that his features seemed to blur together.

She growled, pivoting to look back at the distant figure. Why did he have to play with her like this?

“There’s someone waiting for you at the house, I’m sorry to say,” he told her, “And be sure to bring a bucket with you to bunk, for I’m afraid you’re in for more than you expected.”

“Thank you for the information,” she replied to him coolly, trying not to let her frustration show.

“It’s a good thing you’re leaving now,” there was that damnable amusement prickling his tone again. “There is unrest amongst the non-wizarding kinds, whispers of goblins rising once more, and with Onfroi Montessier’s history, such a thing is better to be distanced from.”

“What do you mean, my father’s history?” she demanded, hands on her hips. “He has nothing to do with goblins!”

The seer laughed, “Don’t ask him, less you wish to feel the pain of his shame. But ask yourself—why would he consider himself surrounded by enemies, if he had never done something to despise?”

She refused to listen to anymore. Each statement he gave made her head swirl with confusion, and she was beginning to question her own thoughts and beliefs far too much. So Dido did the most ladylike thing she could think of; she stuck her tongue out at the man, and turned back around to flee home.


	7. The Girl at Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trying her best to ignore the Seer's words, Dido begins her journey to America under the watchful eye of a rather detestable chaperone. But even though miles stretch between them, the Seer still haunts her as his predictions slowly come true.

After abandoning the creek, Dido had been determined to ignore everything the seer had told her. At first it had been easy, for her mother had indeed arranged for a visit from a woman assigned to chaperone Dido’s voyage across the seas, and there was much to do before they finally could set sail. But very quickly, Dido began to realize that she could not truly forget the words now etched into her mind.

The very first being that soft statement. _There’s someone waiting for you at the house, I’m sorry to say._ It was the last part that seemed most relevant, and truly unfortunate. For it took very little time for Dido to realize that this chaperone, Lucrezia Rubble, was indeed one of the most insufferable people Dido had ever met. She was a minor acquaintance of her father’s friend, Artimer Bleven, who had been largely responsible for arranging Dido’s acceptance into the American wizarding school, Ilvermorny. The woman could barely be her mother’s age, but acted as if she were married to the Prime Minister himself. The airs she put on! Speaking in a highly affected tone of the noble wizarding families, acting as if she had all the money and power in the world. Even Catriona barely managed to keep her temper when Mistress Rubble began one of her rants about how unfortunate it was that there were no wizard-run ships from Britain to the Americas.

“Imagine!” she would say at least three times an hour, “Having to spend weeks on end with _muggles_! How will we survive?”

And Lucrezia had a strange fawning manner of talking to Dido that at once seemed to be praising the girl for her heritage, while similarly reminding her that Lucrezia was far older and worldly than the girl. It was all Dido could do not to snap at the woman when she could not stop touching Dido’s hair, commenting on her clothes, or asking if she was truly sure she had enough things to bring with her to the Americas?

“I have at least twenty trunks myself!” she would spout. “Can’t imagine even making it to London with what you’ve gathered.”

If it weren’t for the fact that she was the only witch of acceptable rank and age to escort Dido to Ilvermorny, she would have been thrown out of the house within two hours. But the Montessier’s had to grit their teeth and bare it, for Dido was truly running out of time if she wanted to make it before the term started. And really, it was only her relation to her aunt, a daughter of the Nott family who married into an American wizarding family, that qualified the woman for the job. Lucrezia could not stop reminding everyone that she was going to stay with her aunt, as the poor woman was in failing health, and (as she kept hinting) was expecting a significant inheritance once the woman died.

As their departure rapidly approached, Dido could not help but feeling a little hopeless at the thought of spending more than a month with no-one but Lucrezia Rubble to keep her company. She also felt a little twinge of concern that the seer might have been more right than she wanted to believe. It was an uncomfortable feeling, thinking that you might not have nearly as much control over your future as you might have liked.

But Dido did manage to shove those thoughts aside when the finally managed to get into the carriage that would take them directly to the Muggle city Liverpool, where they were to catch their ship. Only Catriona and Guarin traveled with them, Catriona to keep ensure a proper handoff with Lucrezia at the dock, and Guarin because he still had not managed to grow accustomed to the fact that Dido was leaving them. Onfroi had not bothered to come along.

He gave his farewell as a father should, formally in the grand foyer of the house, as house elves carried Dido’s trunks to the carriage. There was a brief embrace, a speech about maintaining the family honor, and then Onfroi presented his daughter with a gift.

“You’ll not remember your grandfather,” Onfroi had told her, “For he died before you were walking.”

At that Dido had cast a curious glance towards her mother and brother, both standing by the doorway. Guarin had paled considerably, while Catriona stared stubbornly at the floor. Clearly there was something of a story there she had never been told, but she knew now was not the time to ask. True to the seer’s words, her father had been distracted and particularly grumpy in recent days, and she had been both too cautious to question him about goblins, and similarly too cautious to question him about his father.

“Yet he left to me his wand, so that I might pass it on to my own child,” he continued. “Guarin already had himself a wand, and as such I had been saving it for one of his sons. Yet it is clear to me that this wand should go, instead, to you.”

“To me?” Dido repeated, shocked.

He handed her a sleek black case, just longer than her forearm. When Dido gingerly opened it, she was greeted by the sight of a shiny, pointed wand, decorated with thick ridges to held handholding, and embedded with green gems at the hilt. It oozed power and elegance, and Dido felt very cowed by the thing she possessed.

Onfroi clapped a hand on her shoulder, “Take care of it, daughter. It is the most precious thing you bring to school.”

Dido made sure to store the wand nestled inside a trunk full of dresses. She hoped that between the case and the soft fabric, no matter how rough the seas might be, there would be no damage done to her grandfather’s wand.

Catriona had been insistent during the carriage ride that Dido not bring out the wand for any reason while they were aboard the _Muriel_ , which she was informed was the name of the ship. She was reminded, over and again, that this was a Muggle ship which, though passangered by a majority wizarding passengers, and magic could not, under any circumstances, be performed before Muggle eyes. To do anything else would risk her health and safety, for Muggles were still quite anxious at the notion of magic, and Catriona worried they would harm Dido should she be discovered. Even Guarin chimed in occasionally, trying to remind Dido of all the times a clash between wizard and Muggle ended poorly for their kind.

Dido shared none of her mother’s concerns, and barely listened to the words her brother said. For all that she would be stuck with Lucrezia Rubble, Dido could barely contain her excitement. This was her first trip away from home- save a few brief visits to Diagon Alley or the Ministry. And never before had Dido the opportunity to interact with a Muggle. She knew they were foolish, less capable of thought, reason, or cultured behavior. But so were most children she knew, and Dido had no trouble believing that even if they weren’t as good as wizards, Muggles could at least be interesting and fascinating.

She had to hide this eagerness to interact with Muggles from her family though, for she knew just how strongly her parents disapproved of Muggles. When Emory Cresswell married a woman whose grandmother had been Muggle, Catriona refused to allow his wife to attend any of her salon’s. Her father had neglected to invite Emory to any of his social gatherings as well. The taint of Muggle was too strong in his wife, Catriona had told her, and there was no point in trying to put paint on a cat and call it a Kneazle.

Even the sight of Lucrezia waiting for them at the end of the dock did little to dampen Dido’s spirits for the journey. True to her word, the woman had brought with her an endless sea of trunks and chests, and was directing a group of rather disgruntled looking Muggles to carry them on to the ship. Dido leapt down from the carriage as soon as it came to the slightest stop, going to make her greetings to Lucrezia just as an excuse to get near to a Muggle.

She was not disappointed. The man, for it had to be a man with that unseemly stubble on his face, was dirty and unkempt and had a stench about him that Dido could not name. But he smiled at her, and gave her a wink when Lucrezia sharply told him to go about his work instead of ogling at children. Dido flushed at his attention, and made sure to keep her eye on him and his friends as they began loading up her belongings as well.

Lucrezia was in a fine humor, fanning herself with her hand whilst glaring out at the ship. She, much like Dido, was dressed in true Muggle fashion this time. The corsets were tighter, the hair less styled, and Lucrezia’s skirts were so wide Dido wondered how she even managed to get out of her carriage in the first place. Their robes, as well as the looser and much thinner dresses worn by polite wizards and witches, were stowed safely away in their trunks, only to be brought out again once the journey was over. To be honest, Dido didn’t much mind the change, for her outfit was still mostly the same, though a touch more gathered at the waist, and she was required to wear some frothy thing over her hair.

“My maid refused to come,” Lucrezia snapped at Catriona once the other witch was near. “She claimed the journey was too far, that she could not bear to be parted from her ailing sister, that she could never survive a ship with Muggles.”

While Catriona hummed her sympathies about the loss of a servant, Dido stiffened. _One more and one less_. The seer had predicted this would happen, that there would be someone missing when they left shore, and here was that missing person. Lucrezia’s maid. Still, she comforted herself with the thought that only part of his prophecy came true. _One more_. What on earth could that mean?

It took longer for Guarin to give his goodbyes than it did for the sailors to load Dido’s trunks aboard the ship. Catriona kept hers polite and warm, with a promise to write and see her daughter soon. Guarin clutched her to his chest, pressing kisses and dripping tears onto her hair. He pledged to write her a letter every day, but when both Catriona and Dido protested, he relented to one a month. When eventually he released her to Lucrezia’s care, they had little more than an hour to board the ship and prepare for departure.

Lucrezia first took Dido to their cabin, showing her the beds they were to be using (“How tiny! And uncomfortable!”) and demonstrated the wardrobe with the few dresses they would be wearing during the trip. She made a vague gesture towards where they were expected to go to relieve themselves, and warned her that she should prepare herself for, “an unending nightmare of vulgarity.” When Dido asked to go abovedeck so that she might properly wave goodbye to England, Lucrezia relented, though she demanded to accompany the girl.

Abovedeck, Dido was lost in a swirl of motion. There were men in ratty clothing racing about, securing ropes and shouting words at one another that made absolutely no sense. Dido wondered if it was Muggle lingo, or if this was something specific to a ship. There were passengers too, Muggles and wizards alike. It was easy to tell the difference between them, for the wizards had a look of haughty apprehension to them as they wandered the deck, eyeing everything as if it were simultaneously a disgusting disappointment, while also a dangerous explosive. The Muggles were similarly anxious, but she could tell it was less because they were afraid of Muggle contraptions, and more because they were about to leave home for an extended period of time.

For now, Dido ignored them all, and secured a spot along the railing where neither sailors nor passengers would disturb her. She hung over the edge, her feet not even touching the wooden planks of the deck, and watched the rolling waves slapping gently against the hull of the boat. Her family had long since departed, not wanting to expose themselves to too many Muggles, but there were clusters of Muggles on the dock and along the shore waving at the ship with tears in their eyes and smiles on their faces. Some Muggles on the ship were waving back.

There was sun. There was wind. There was the scent of the sea, something new and exciting, and the feel of rough wood beneath her hands. Dido had never been happier.

Until they were actually on the sea, that was. Lucrezia had dragged her back to the cabin shortly after they set off from the dock, before they even managed to clear the harbor walls. And within the hour, Dido found herself curled up on her bed fighting the sudden clenching awfulness in her stomach.

“I don’t understand,” she moaned to Lucrezia, “Is this what happens when a witch leaves home?”

Lucrezia sniffed, “Don’t be silly. It’s just homesickness. Take a nap, and you’ll wake up feeling much refreshed.”

While Dido did eventually manage to fall asleep, it was to wake up vomiting on the cabin floor. Much disgusted, Lucrezia managed to perform a quick _scourgify_ to clean up the mess, though it did not entirely remove the sour stench to the air.

Dido could not seem to calm the violent shuddering of her stomach matching the motion of the ocean waves. While Lucrezia was willing to clean up the first few spewing results of this illness, she was unwilling to do so a third or fourth time. With a firm grip on the wilting girl’s arm, she marched her down the narrow passageways to where the Muggle healer for the ship was housed. She slammed her fist against his door until he opened it. When they explained to the man what the problem was, he stared at them with wide and shocked eyes.

“It’s just seasickness!” he exclaimed. “Good Lord, you’re acting as if she carried the plague! Give the girl a bucket, keep her from eating for the next day or so, and if it gets truly intolerable, sit her above deck where the fresh air might harden her up a bit.”

_Be sure to bring a bucket with you to bunk._

Unfortunately, this foretelling now made perfect sense. Dido sat on the floor of the cabin for the better part of a day, expelling her final meal from home over and again until Lucrezia gave up on keeping her and sent her abovedeck.

“I shouldn’t come along,” she said, making excuses, “I’ll only be a distraction. Stay until you’re well enough to sleep, and I’ll wait up for you.”

Even in her indisposition, Dido knew that Lucrezia would not be waiting up for her. She stumbled to the stairs (really more of a ladder than anything) clutching the rim of her bucket with one hand, and climbing up with the other.

Abovedeck, things seemed to be business as usual for the sailors. The temperature being significantly colder the further they traveled from shore, most passengers had fled to their cabins by now. There remained a handful who, like Dido, looked particularly green. Most clung to the railings, not bothering with such things as buckets, and looked even more miserable than Dido felt.

What she wanted was a high place, safe and isolated, but there were no such places on a ship like this. So she nestled herself between a pile of ropes and a large post holding up one of the sails. There didn’t seem to be much activity here, and she hoped she would be able to ride out the illness without being disturbed. Between bouts of vomiting, she tried to keep track of the rhythm of the sailors, so that she might find a better hiding place in future days, but mostly could not focus long enough to establish a regular pattern. Such analysis would have to wait.

Unfortunately, it was several days before her stomach finally settled. When she emerged from her hiding places, bucket empty and no longer looking seconds from fainting, some of the sailors laughed and commended her for finding her sea legs. Dido had looked at them, confused, and told them she still had her normal legs from before. That brought out more laughter, but alerted Lucrezia to Dido’s fraternization with Muggles, and the older woman quickly dragged Dido away.

As any proper chaperone would, Lucrezia tried to keep Dido’s time occupied with appropriate pursuits. She tried to encourage Dido’s stitching with magical threat that could let her finished animals come to life upon embroidered surfaces. She introduced Dido to the collections of witches and wizards aboard the ship who all seemed quite eager to make the acquaintance of a Montessier, even if she were the least important Montessier. Lucrezia even went as far as to suggest Dido spend some time studying, but reading Guarin’s books while hidden away in her cabin only brought back her nausea again, so she could only do it sparingly. Eventually, Lucrezia grew disenchanted with engaging Dido in proper pursuits, and began to allow her more freedoms than Catriona or Onfroi would have approved of.

Dido spent this time on the deck, staring out at the endless sea, listening to the sailors laugh and sing with one another, watching the way the sails flapped in the breeze. She did not engage with any of them, but sat in shadowed nooks and crannies with her dark eyes always focused on something or the other. Eventually, the sailors began to take notice of her presence. They started with giving her a wide berth, remembering that she belonged with those more _peculiar_ passengers who kept mostly to themselves and always seemed to have an attitude towards normal folks like them. But the longer she watched them, the more they realized that there was nothing frightening about her. She was simply a bored and curious girl.

So they began to speak to her. It started one a chilly morning, when a passing man offered her a scarf. She accepted it, though it stank of sweat and brine, and gratefully wrapped it around her neck and head to keep warm. Then, a few days later, someone offered to teach her several of the knots they used with the ropes. Before long she was racing in their shadows, trailing along as they kept the ship afloat and in working order. They didn’t put her to work, but they didn’t stop her if she offered to help untangle ropes or wash the deck.

“What do they call you?” she was asked after more than a week of accompanying them about.

“Dido,” she told them.

The man she met on the dock, who winked at her, considered her name carefully, before frowning, “Strange name.”

She similarly considered it, and realized that perhaps Muggles did not have nicknames like she did. But still, Dido stuck. And eventually one of the younger sailors aboard, a boy who couldn’t be more than fourteen, noticed the hungry way Dido eyed the crow’s nest atop the largest sail. It took several days of discussing amongst his superiors before it was decided that, should she want to, they would teach Dido how to climb into the sails. The boy, Martin, had to first offer a pair of trousers to the girl, so that she’d be decent while doing it. She readily agreed, tucking a loose sleeping shirt into the pants and wrapping a sash around the waist to keep them from falling to her ankles. The sailors laughed at the sight of her, a pretty little girl with bones like a bird and gleaming hair, dressed as a seasoned sailor with such a determined look on her face she almost belonged to them.

And then they were shocked, and amazed, at how easily Dido made the climb from deck to fighting top. They practiced her on that middle height for awhile, before allowing her to climb up the larger masts. Eventually, it became common to see her clinging to the main or foremast, staring out into sea like a little bird watching for land.

When stumbling back to her cabin late one evening, hastily trying to throw a loose dress over her outfit so that Lucrezia wouldn’t notice the boys’ clothing she wore, Dido stumbled into the hunched figure of a woman along the railing. The woman, a Muggle given the fact that Dido had not met her yet, looked much like Dido remembered herself being early on in the journey. Pale, sweat beading on her forehead, a pinched, terrified look of someone about to expel their meal. Ignoring the fact that Lucrezia was waiting, and would likely scold Dido for being out so late, the younger girl paused.

“Has the seasickness not passed yet?” she asked in a sympathetic tone. “Mine went away in a few days, but Gary says sometimes it won’t leave.”

The woman shook her head, trying to smile and failing. “It’s not seasickness,” she mumbled.

“Oh,” Dido stepped back, unsure if the woman carried some illness she should be avoiding.

When she saw that, the woman managed a half smile. She took one hand off the railing and placed it on the fabric of her dress just over her stomach.

“I’ve only just found out,” she confided, “Otherwise I would have waited for the journey. But I suppose I’ll be having a baby in America now.”

“A baby?” Dido wrinkled her nose.

She knew very little about the nature behind bringing children into the world, but she did know the woman was responsible for producing and carrying the child. Her mother had once, in an offhand manner, mentioned that Dido would one day herself marry and give her husband heirs, but the Korrigan had done little more to explain it than outline the basics. She had grown very flustered when Dido had asked, and insisted that Catriona would explain fully when Dido was older.

“Yes,” the woman said, almost proudly. “I just wish I could tell my husband to expect one more when we get there.”

_One more._

Well, Merlin’s sock, Dido thought to herself. The Seer was actually right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!
> 
> We are almost to where the "real" story begins (Dido arriving at Ilvermorny) which I hope to have uploaded next week. From here on out, I am planning on weekly postings and have begun stockpiling extra words in case I am unable to meet my writing goal for the week. The writing process is relatively slow, if only because I spend countless hours on worldbuilding which becomes more and more necessary the farther away from JK Rowling's world we go. I hope that it will help create a well-rounded narrative, and that you can be patient during the writing process. Thank you for coming this far, and please let me know if you have any questions or comments!
> 
> Cheers


	8. The Girl on New Soil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dido's journey to Ilvermorny is nearly complete! But with Lucrezia as her chaperone, things are never going to go as expected.

They were making good time until the storm hit. But the roiling clouds and thunderous downpour delayed them for more than a week. It had taken Dido hours to convince Lucrezia it was better for her to roam outside of the cabin, promising and swearing that she wouldn’t go above deck, even though she knew such promises would be lies. Unfortunately, though Lucrezia finally relented, her sailor friends would not.

“It’s not safe for you up here, Dido,” Freddie told her sternly when she tried to poke her head out the hatch.

“But I’ll be careful!” Dido protested.

They would not budge, and refused to allow Dido out of her cabin until the skies cleared and they could continue on their way once more. Thankfully, once freed, they welcomed her assistance with repairing torn sails and restoring the deck to an organized state. Dido managed to occupy the last fifteen days of their voyage this way, safely hidden away from Lucrezia while enjoying the last of her outdoor freedom. Once she made it to school, she knew, there would be little opportunity to just be out like this. The sailors teased her, warning that she would arrive to America with a face full of freckles, skin tanned, and hair bleached even whiter by the sun. But she would only stick her tongue out at them and scurry to the other side of the deck.

It was only by the time that they spotted the shores of Massachusetts on the horizon that Dido realized she had spent near the entire voyage without using, or even desiring to use, magic. Her grandfather’s wand remained stashed, the books Guarin gave her largely unread. Though she knew Lucrezia and her fellow witch companions on the boat often resorted to petty spells in order to make their journey more comfortable, Dido had been content to experience the seas much like a Muggle would. The realization made her somewhat uncomfortable.

She had always thought that she was made of magic, much the way her parents and brother were. They couldn’t go a single day without using their wands to light a candle or summon a pair of slippers. But what if the Sorting Hat had been right? What if she really wasn’t a witch, seeing as she was so willing to abandon her heritage for only the promise of fresh air and companionship? She spent that last night on her bunk, summoning a small flicker of fire in her palm to ensure that she still could, in fact, use her magic.

 _I am a witch_ , she thought to herself resolutely. _I can do magic. I am a Montessier. I am a witch._

And then Lucrezia rolled over and snapped at her to stop playing and go to sleep.

The next morning saw Dido pacing on deck, staring anxiously at the approaching shoreline. She was dressed in proper wizarding clothes, a loose dress of sea green underneath a dark grey robe. The other witches and wizards had similarly abandoned their Muggle dress for their own fashion, though thankfully there was not so much of a difference for them to truly stand out. But the sailors eyed her sadly, recognizing that she was no longer one of their own but instead a separate alien from them that they could no longer interact with the way they had grown accustomed.

Still Dido managed to sneak in goodbyes as the ship docked, and even pressed a stale sweet into Martin’s palm as he helped her walk down the gangplank.

Even a single step on American soil told Dido that this world was entirely different. She knew that everyone called it the _New_ World, but Dido didn’t feel that. She tasted the air and the flavors of a thousand different years exploded in her mouth. The earth beneath her feet had supported countless other feet, countless other people. But this was all new to _her_ , and she was unendingly excited.

And she had never seen a Muggle town like this. Of course, when her parents took her to the ship, she had been able to peak glances through the carriage window at the surroundings. But that was glimpses through glass, and this was true experience. She giggled, delighting in letting her feet hit the ground as hard as she could, watching dust rise up from the cobblestones as she did. Perhaps just as eager to be off the ocean and on solid land once more, Lucrezia tolerated her childishness with nothing more than a sniff.

But it became rapidly clear that neither of them had much of an idea of what to do now. Dido was, of course, following Lucrezia’s lead, but now without clear direction the older witch seemed to be at a loss. Until they heard someone calling.

“Mistress Rubble, Miss Montessier!” a round witch, who had been close to Lucrezia during the voyage, was waving to them. “We’re meant to stop through the MACUSA office when we arrive. Shall I show you the way?”

Lucrezia agreed, and the witch, who had immigrated to America a dozen years previous, directed the boys on the dock as to where to deliver Lucrezia and Dido’s bags. Lucrezia had to hold Dido’s arm tight as they walked through the bustling streets of the city, Boston, someone told her, in attempt to find the office where the witch insisted they must first go.

“They’re so strict about these things here,” the witch explained, “And if you’re new to America, they need to ensure that you’re prepared to follow their silly rules. It’s really nothing special- you listen, you nod, you’re free to go.”

Despite the assuring tone of the witch’s voice, Dido could tell Lucrezia was nervous. The older witch had a pinched look to her face, and she walked with short, sharp steps. When they arrived at the rather nondescript brick building, she seemed to stumble over the perfectly even sidewalk. But when Dido looked up at her questioningly, Lucrezia looked down and gave her a confident look.

“They best not lose the luggage!” Lucrezia said shrilly as they stepped in the building, obviously trying to distract herself. “I’ll have their heads if they do.”

But Dido was not listening, for she was looking around her in amazement. While the exterior of the building seemed to match the surrounding architecture, plain brick buildings only a few stories high with nothing more than white trim for decoration, the interior was a stark contrast. Marble floors, granite columns, and an endless sea of people swarming about filled a space that was certainly much larger on the inside than the exterior suggested. Lucrezia did a slightly better job of hiding her shock, and marched Dido towards the line forming beneath the sign reading _International Customs._

They did not have to wait long, but it was long enough that two red spots appeared on Lucrezia’s cheeks. Dido knew her well enough by now to know that if there was anything Lucrezia hated more than feeling insignificant, it was others treating her as if she were, indeed, insignificant. When they finally arrived at the customs desk, the woman was quivering with anger.

“I’ve come to visit family, and she’s come for school,” Lucrezia snapped when asked the purpose for their visit.

The customs wizard was a tired, stooped old man whose eyes had long since glazed over by the monotony of his job. There seemed little to it for it was as the other witch had described it, just a simple formality designed to project an appearance of authority. But when Lucrezia provided their names, something in the man woke up.

“Montessier?” he grunted, squinting down at Dido, “Orpheus, come here!”

A much younger wizard, barely older than Guarin, jogged over to them. He wore the green robes of an apprentice within the American Ministry, and Dido appreciated the way the color brought out the sparkle of his hazel eyes. When he caught her looking, he winked, prompting Dido to look at the floor in utter mortification.

“Was Montessier on the list of banned visitors?” the customs wizard grumbled.

The younger wizard did not even need to check the parchment in his hand, “Not at all, sir. Montessier was on the list of _expected_ visitors. Do we have our Montessier here?”

The wizard jabbed a quill in Dido’s direction. The young girl had to look up and face the handsome wizard once more as he compared her information to that provided on the scroll. So distracted by his work, she was able to appreciate his fine features without being caught.

“Montessier,” he confirmed, “You’re a few weeks late, aren’t you? Never mind that, I’ve instructions here to take you directly to the Floo Chamber, where we’ve arranged travel to Ilvermorny.”

Dido was lost in the sea of words and the color of his eyes, but Lucrezia was not. She had a hand on Dido’s shoulder, stopping her from following after the wizard as she so wished to. Looking back, she could see the normal haughty and disgusted face Lucrezia wore.

“Do you mean to say that we’re expected to _Floo_ to this academy?” she shrieked.

A few heads turned and looked their way. Those behind them in line were grumbling, wanting to get their turn over and done with and frustrated at the hold up. Dido turned a bright red and wished she could sink into the floor. She did not like the way people were looking at Lucrezia, and by association, her. Attention meant judgment, judgment was harsh, and Dido had learned by now it was better to remain quiet and unseen that to flaunt oneself in public.

“Apologies, sir,” Dido tried to mediate the circumstances with a combination of childhood precocious-ment and British charm. “But what it a Floo Chamber?”

It seemed to be working. The young wizard smiled becomingly in her direction, “A Floo Chamber, dear girl, allows one to move immediately from one place to the next through the use of fire and fireplaces.”

Dido thought for a moment, before understanding struck her. “That’s what my Papa does!”

“Your father Floos?” the elder wizard wheezed, staring down at her.

Lucrezia sniffed, drawing Dido closer to her, “Her father, Sir Onfroi Montessier, is charged as the Head of the Floo Network Authority. British Ministry of Magic, floor six, if you’ve any knowledge.”

“Onfroi Montessier?” the younger wizard frowned, “The name is familiar, but I’m afraid I can claim nothing more than that. Now if you would please follow me…?”

But Lucrezia remained firm. She began protesting quite loudly about the indignity of Floo travel, of any sort of rushed and unladylike travel, and only grew more and more irate as the American officials offered increasingly inappropriate suggestions. Portkeys were scolded, brooms laughed at, carpets scoffed, and even a method of travel Dido had never heard of before involving instantaneous movement. Lucrezia refused them all. Eventually both the customs wizard and the apprentice were red-faced with exasperation, and nearly shouting themselves.

“Fine!” the young wizard snapped, throwing his hands in the air, “Take a horse and carriage! But even if you leave today, that’s another three or four days’ travel, and the girl is already nearly three weeks past the start of term!”

Dido felt her heart drop into her stomach.

“I’m what?” she gasped, clenching her fists together so tightly she was sure she had drawn blood.

The young wizard shot her a sympathetic look, “Term begins half-a-week before September, and you’re well past that. Be my guest if you wish to be later, but we _recommend_ moving a little faster.

She directed her wide, dark eyes to Lucrezia. The woman did not appear disturbed by the news, and refused to acknowledge Dido’s insistent tugging at the sleeve of her robes.

“A horse and carriage is the only _proper_ way for witches of our status to travel,” she snapped.

“B-but I’ll be late!” Dido spluttered.

Only then did Lucrezia pay her any mind. “You’re already late, child, another few days won’t hurt you.”

For all that Dido protested another few days _would_ hurt, it seemed Lucrezia’s mind was made up. Grumbling and growling, the apprentice wizard led them to a different desk where they could arrange transportation, which Lucrezia deemed _appropriate_ , to the Greylock mountain, where this school was apparently located. Dido fumed the entire time, glowering at the floor and making sure her displeasure was known in whichever manner she could. At least her obvious unhappiness seemed to put the apprentice wizard into a sympathetic state, for he did assure them that he allocated the fastest horses for the trip.

“Chollima bred,” he assured them, “They can go more than a day without rest, I promise you.”

She had to resign herself to this being the best she could get. And while Lucrezia arranged for her own luggage to be sent directly to her aunt’s home in Charleston, Dido plotted for ways to ensure she would not be so hopelessly behind. As they loaded the cramped and rather threadbare carriage, Dido ensured she would have easy access to the satchel full of Guarin’s books. She would read the entire journey, and when they arrived she would be more than ready for it.

Her resolve did not waver even though the light in the carriage was dim, the air stuffy, and the rocking motion of horses at a fast pace set her stomach roiling in a manner that reminded her of the sea. To make matters worse, Lucrezia seemed determined to draw her into conversation, so that she might have a partner to complain about the inefficiency of the American governing system. Dido refused to engage, which sent Lucrezia into a huffing pout. Between that and her tantrum, Dido was now firmly convinced that she was, in fact, the adult and her chaperone the child.

They rode for hours. Much of what Guarin’s first year books contained Dido had encountered before. But she was grateful for the review, as she committed old spells to memory, and refreshed herself on the complexities behind some of the theory. She always hated the theory of spellcasting more than anything else. The spells themselves were the fun, making magic where there was none. But she was uncertain what to expect at this school, and hoped to prepare herself in every way.

Unfortunately, when the sun sank below the mountains in the western distance, Dido had to set the books aside. She was trapped in a swaying, dark, dank space with a woman who could not stop snoring, and she was angry. It had been easy to set aside her anger for a while, while she had the books to occupy herself, but now facing a sleepless night stuck with a woman who was only making her life more miserable, Dido could not help but feed the flames of her anger.

They stopped twice that night. Once, before Lucrezia had fallen asleep, had been to give the horses a brief respite, and allow the people to relieve themselves. The carriage was driven by two wizards, so that they might take turns resting and directing, and they were willing to share with the unprepared Dido and Lucrezia their rations. Lucrezia had sniffed at the poor quality of the food, but Dido had been thankful. To be honest, the fair on the ship hadn’t been much better, and at least their apples were bruised from months of containment in a single barrel.

The second time had been to switch the horses out for new ones. Apparently the Ministry kept stables throughout the territory where traveling officials could relieve their mounts or take rest if they needed it. Dido had taken the break as an excuse to step outside and breathe in the fresh, night air, and watched in fascination as the wizards underwent the process of exchanging beasts. These new horses seemed much larger, stronger and a good deal friskier than the ones previous. When he caught her eyeing them, the stablewizard told her that their previous mounts were only a quarter Chollima. These ones were half.

“Get us the rest of the way there without worry,” she was promised.

 _Good_ , the girl thought to herself. _We should be hurrying_.

Despite her insistence to travel quickly, Dido was loathe to return herself to the interior of the carriage where Lucrezia slumbered still. In a desperate bid for a small amount of freedom, she turned to the drivers.

“Can I sit with you?” she asked.

It seemed the most reasonable thing to do. She wanted clean air and away from that dreadful witch she was rapidly growing to hate. Besides, it wasn’t as if she could do anymore reading this late in the evening. And she did not feel like falling asleep. The drivers eyed one another, before shrugging.

“You’re slight enough, I imagine the bench can take it,” the first one said. His partner did not disagree, though he urged Dido to collect a blanket or cloak to keep herself warm. “The wind will bite you,” he warned.

She only reached a hand inside the carriage, not wanting to risk waking her chaperone, and managed to find one of the woman’s spare robes Lucrezia had flung about to try and make the space more comfortable. Though she swam in the fabric, and could barely clamber her way up into the driver’s bench, the two wizards were quite satisfied that she would not freeze while racing through the Massachusetts night. They nestled her between them, so that she might not fall off if they hit a bump, and ordered the horses forward.

Dido knew at once that she had made the right choice. It was even better than standing on the bow of a ship. The wind was not her friend as they began their sprint. No, it was an enemy, a knife trying to flay her alive and peel her skin from her bones. Her hair pulled free of the neat braid she had pinned to her head that morning, and the sharp tendrils stung her cheeks as they moved along. She could feel her nails digging into the wood, partially in a desperate urge to feel like she had control over her own body. But largely because it was simply so thrilling to experience the night like this. She laughed gaily into the night air. This was perfect.

The wizards on either side of her looked at one another quickly, and then began to laugh as well. Though it was too loud as they moved to speak, there were no words needed. The night was enough, it said more than any of them could. Dido sat, laughing and alert, until the sun finally rose in the sky behind them. As light pierced the fog of the night, she could see looming ahead, the ominous shape of a dark mountain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that you've enjoyed everything thus far! Looking forward to feedback, and I will be eagerly getting started on the next chapter for you guys.


	9. The Girl and the Matron

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She has finally arrived at Ilvermorny on a dark and rainy night. Surely this isn't a herald for bad things to come?

It was easier to see mountains than it was to climb them. Though Dido had slunk with her tail between her legs back into the carriage when Lucrezia awoke and threw a fit to find her gone, she had not expected to remain trapped in the tight space for the rest of the day. After all, it hadn’t seemed as if they were so far away last she looked! But Dido had never truly seen mountains before, not like these. Her mountains were little more than rolling hills compared to these sloped and scraggily, tree covered monuments.

Eventually Lucrezia grew annoyed with Dido constantly pressing her face against the glass window on the carriage door, and snapped at the girl to return to her studies from the day before. Dido tried to comply, and sat with a book open in her lap. But her eyes could not process the words on the page before her, and at every slight sound she jumped, expecting someone to call out that they had arrived. Near noon, when they made for a brief stop, Dido managed to ask one of the drivers how much longer they thought it would be.

“After dusk, at earliest,” they replied, making faces. “It’ll be a wet night, too, and I doubt we’ll outrun the clouds. Won’t slow us down at all, but it’ll be fair uncomfortable. Be glad you’ll be dry and inside.”

 _This stupid weather_ , Dido cursed. First the storm at sea, now rain in the mountains. She just wanted to get there already!

After hearing that it would, indeed, be a few more hours, Dido attacked her books with a renewed vigor. If she were to be stuck in the carriage until evening, at least she would make it a productive time. The closer they drew to the school, the more Dido worried. She wanted to make a good impression, she _needed_ to make a good impression. She had to prove to them, everyone who ever whispered Squib, to Hogwarts, to her own family, that she was good enough to do this. But her hands were shaking so much she could barely turn the pages and her heart was fluttering with something entirely other than nausea.

Lucrezia noticed her nerves, and reached out to place a comforting hand on Dido’s arm.

“You are a Montessier,” she reminded the girl. “I’ll make sure they know that too, and what it means. You are proud, you are strong, and none of these stupid Americans should ever make you feel otherwise.”

It was the nicest thing Dido had ever heard Lucrezia say. She tucked it away as a small piece of comfort for what she knew was going to be the hardest thing she had ever done thus far. _Only three months ago, I thought I would never be taken seriously as a witch_ , she reminded herself. _And now look at me._

She hoped to at least catch sight of the building before nightfall, but the drivers were not lying when they warned of rain. Mid-afternoon welcomed a downpouring that would have washed any Muggle carriage off the road. By then, it was too dark for Dido to read, and she knew trying to sit up front was out of the question as well. So she did something she never would have thought possible, but willingly engaged Lucrezia in conversation.

“Did you go to Hogwarts?” she asked the woman, well aware that few of their station did.

Lucrezia surprised her by nodded, “Just the first three years, there’s not much else for us to learn besides that.”

“I am to do the full seven years,” Dido muttered. She wasn’t upset with that, in fact she was excited at the prospect of being able to devote so much of her time to studying. But it did disappoint her that she would be expected to spend that much time in the Americas.

“Well,” Lucrezia sighed, “I suppose your father thinks you’ve something to prove? Though I can’t imagine seven years here will be much better than three at Hogwarts. I hear this place grew out of a _cottage_ , can you imagine that?”

Dido frowned. She had been picturing a grand castle, like Guarin had always described Hogwarts to be. Towers and turrets, bridges and drawbridges. But a cottage? She tried to imagine spending the next seven years tripping over the bodies of her classmates while cramped into a one-roomed schoolhouse. Surely it was something better than that now?

“What was it like?” Dido asked, trying to distract herself from these new fears. “What courses did you take? Did you make friends easily?”

“We weren’t there to make _friends,_ ” Lucrezia corrected her. “We made connections. All of the best of us were in Slytherin together, which helped immensely when it came time for marriages. I took what was expected of me, as a woman, and I have to say, the whole experience was rather overrated. Boys, yes, they should go and learn and grow up there. But you would have been just fine staying with your mother.”

Already annoyed, Dido quickly ended the conversation and spent the rest of the ride with her forehead pressed against the window. Lucrezia did not seem to mind, and hummed tunelessly to herself without paying Dido any mind. The pelting rain against the roof mostly managed to drown her out, though, so Dido tried not to let it bother her.

And then, all too soon, she felt the carriage rolling to a halt.

Dido did not wait for one of the drivers to open the door. She jumped down from the carriage eagerly, immediately landing in a puddle and splashing muddy water all over the hem of her robes. She did not care as the cold water immediately began to leech into her bones, nor that the rain was plastering her hair to her face. The girl tilted her head back, and gazed at the looming figure of the building before her.

It certainly wasn’t a cottage. The towering gate before them stood almost as tall as her home, and by the shadows she could see through the rain, she was quite certain she could count at least two towers. But the most easily discernible feature was the pair of large marble statues on either side of the front gate. On the left, a slender witch with long, sweeping hair, in a simple robe. The other side was a man, dressed in Muggle clothing, with his hand outstretched towards the woman. Despite the rain dripping down the chins of the statues, the torches that lit them up did not even flicker in the downpour.

This was it. Not as good as Hogwarts, but at the very least better than France. At least, those were the words her father used. Better than nothing, better than France. And she was finally here.

At first, Lucrezia refused to get down from the carriage, snapping about getting her robes wet. But when the drivers reminded her that they could not stay much longer than it took to unload Dido’s baggage, the older witch relented. She did not want to spend the next few days stuck in the school while waiting for another ride to come, but until they found an authority to hand Dido off to, she could not leave the girl alone. Grumbling, Lucrezia climbed from the carriage with the neck of her robe drawn over her hair, strode purposefully past Dido, and slammed her fist against the wooden door.

Dido heard the knock vertebrate throughout the building. At first, she winced. It was late, and it was not as if she wanted her arrival to be announced before the entire school—she wanted to stay out of sight until she could gather her wits and bearings about her. But then, as the minutes ticked on and her trunks sat on the side of the road getting wetter and wetter, she wondered if Lucrezia had knocked hard enough.

“No decency,” Lucrezia grumbled, tugging at the sleeves of her robes as if that would be the thing to dry her off and open the door.

Her slippers entirely soaked through by the rain, cold and shivering, Dido couldn’t help but agreeing. But there was still a glimmer of excitement and terror running through her, perhaps more of the cause to the shivering than any inclement weather. Behind them, the horses neighed in frustration, wishing to continue on their journey once more. Lucrezia grunted in kind.

Dido heard the sound first, a distinct ringing of boots against a stone floor. It was faint, barely discernible about the drumming rain, but she could not mistake that sound anywhere—too often in her youth had she had to run and hide when hearing those sounds coming near. Between her parents, house elves, maids and her Korrigan, she had grown quite attuned to the various sounds of approaching feet. Dido stood on her toes, gripping Lucrezia’s hand tightly.

The great wooden doors swung outward. Dido couldn’t breathe. A rush of warm air raced out from the interior of the large stone building, strong enough that if she hadn’t been bracing her feet she might have been forced to stumble back. As it was, Lucrezia jumped in shock. But Dido ignored her, staring into the near impenetrable gloom on the other side of the doors.

A brief mutter, and suddenly a woman appeared before them, illuminated by the glowing tip of a wand. The stark lighting threw her face in sharp relief, elongating her already beaked nose, casting her hair and forehead into shadows. From what Dido could see, the stranger was older than both her parents, with light, grey-streaked hair, and wore a frown on her lined face that made Dido want to shiver for entirely new reasons. It was clear by the loose clothing the woman wore that she had not been dressed for public company.

“Meiriona Montessier,” the woman said sharply.

Dido winced. Her accent was harsh, grating, and the words coming out garbled. _My-rhy-own-a. Mon-tea-zier._ Not at all the way they were meant to sound. Unfortunately, Lucrezia agreed.

“ _May_ -riona Mon­- _tess­-_ ea,” she corrected. “It is French.”

There were two reasons Dido winced. The first was that Lucrezia had barely done better, and truly, only her family name hailed from France—centuries ago. But her mother had picked Meiriona from a book on Welsh wizarding history. There was a reason why she preferred Dido. The other reason behind her wince was the way this stranger’s face went suddenly from annoyed to furious. It was clear that she despised being corrected.

Dido tried to shrink and hide behind Lucrezia, but her tactic did not work. The stranger focused her eyes directly on Dido’s pale face.

Lucrezia must have thought that the woman hadn’t understood her introduction, for she continued on. “The only daughter of esteemed Sir Onfroi Montessier, and his wife Catriona, of the Rowle family. They are of the most imminent position of wizarding society-.”

“Eminent,” the stranger corrected, ignoring the outraged look on Lucrezia’s face. “The word you were looking for was _eminent,_ not _imminent_. Whatever her father is in England does not matter here, so you can save the rest of your prattling. I’ll take the girl now, and a good evening to you.”

If it wasn’t for the fact that Dido was more terrified of being alone with this woman than with Lucrezia, she might have laughed at the blunt way the stranger managed to get her chaperone to quiet down. But with those steely blue eyes focused on her, Dido could not imagine laughing. She tried to take a step forward, as the woman seemed clearly to want her to do, but a furious Lucrezia refused to let her move.

“And just who are _you_ to be treating me so rudely?” she shrieked, that familiar shrill voice Dido had come to hate in the past few weeks. “Be warned, woman, that you do not find yourself removed from your position for such behavior!”

The stranger drew herself up to her full height, which Dido realized was quite tall. She wished she could sink into the ground now, and hide from the fury radiating from every bone in her body.

“I am Matron Logg, Overseer of the Female Dormitory here at Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,” she sniffed. “Besides renowned Headmistress Stewart herself, there is none of higher authority when it comes to the fairer sex at this institution.”

“I will just have to speak with this Stewart about your-,” Lucrezia began.

This time Dido was the one who cut her off, “Mistress Rubble! I believe the drivers are aiming to depart now.”

“Well,” Lucrezia faltered, remembering her desire to leave, “But still, I insist-.”

“Mama and Papa will be quite pleased when I write to tell them of your diligence,” Dido assured her, rather pointedly.

At the mention of her parents, Lucrezia flushed. She mumbled a few more words, threats towards Matron Logg, and reminders to Dido to pass on positive messages to her parents. Dido made the appropriate motions and goodbyes, waving and smiling all the while standing still in the rain with the Matron standing behind her. When the carriage door slammed shut, and Lucrezia’s face was no longer visible, Dido sighed in relief.

That relief faded the moment she turned back around and saw that Matron Logg seemed in no better mood even after Lucrezia’s departure. Dido wilted. But at least the woman did not seem cruel enough to force Dido to remain out in the rain, and stepped aside so that the girl might finally escape from the weather. She muttered a thanks, ducking under Matron Logg’s arm, and took her first steps into the school that was to be her savior.

It was too dark to see much. The ceiling above was tall enough that the light from Matron Logg’s wand did nothing to light it up. They were in some sort of entrance hall, Dido could tell, for she could see nothing of decoration or practical use nearby. There were the vague suggestions of arches off to either side, leading to further gloomy spaces that Dido hoped to soon be exploring. And then the heavy door slammed shut behind her, making her jump and whirl back around to face Matron Logg.

The other woman was staring back, an eyebrow raised in an obvious sign of disdain. Without the bolstering presence of the outdoors, Dido felt frightened and trapped in the endless room. She tried to offer a smile, but it clearly did nothing to move Matron Logg.

“You’re late, you’re wet, and you’re out past curfew,” Matron Logg informed her sharply. “There’s no time for anything, not when you’ve not even the decency to arrive when you were meant to. Follow me.”

She began moving abruptly, forcing Dido into a quick jog in order to not be left behind in the darkness. Matron Logg was tall, with long legs, and she covered a lot of ground quickly. She must have been wearing sturdy boots beneath her sleeping robe, for the ringing of her heels against the floor served almost as effective a guide as her wand. But unfortunately their pace and the shadows left Dido feeling more than a little lost, and she did not have much of an opportunity to look around.

There were a few things she did notice. The first room they passed through was directly to the left of the entrance hall, and Dido was quite certain it served as the dining hall, for she stumbled into more than one chair in the darkness as she tried to keep pace with Matron Logg. The woman did not even turn over her shoulder to check on the girl, trusting her to right herself once more and manage on her own. It was not a particularly long dining hall, for almost as quickly as they had entered, Matron Logg took a sharp turn and they entered corridor, much narrower than any of the spaces they had been in thus far. Dido could make some sense of the walls, a dark wood paneling which only absorbed what little light Matron Logg provided. There were a few doors here on either side, firmly shut with no hint as to what might be inside.

Matron Logg directed them past all of these things, until they at last ran almost directly into a flat wall. While Dido could tell from the reflecting gleam that there were windows set into the wall, she had no notion of what they revealed. There were two doors directly facing one another on either side of the corridor. The one to the left had the bronze image of a traditional wizard, bearded, robed and wearing the pointed hat. The other door had the impression of a witch, her hair long and unbound, her robes in the classical style. Matron Logg walked up to this door, extinguishing her light momentarily so that she might press the tip of it to the witch’s hand.

If she said a spell or incantation, Dido was unable to hear it. But she did she the sudden glow of the witch’s hand, as if the metal was suddenly heated, and the nod of the witch’s head. The door softly unlatched. Matron Logg pushed it open with the tip of her wand, stepping through the doorway and into whatever it was on the other side. Hesitantly, Dido followed her.

“This is the dormitory in which you, and all other female students, are housed,” Matron Logg told her, pulling Dido through a short and narrow hallway until they emerged into a much larger space. “We have passed by my rooms already, as I am to monitor the entrance at all times to ensure proper use.”

Though the girl could not see much, she could tell instantly that this space was unlike the others she had just passed through. The air was heavier, the ceilings shorter, and there was the smell associated with upholstery and carpeting. She imagined that this was the comfortable sitting space where the girls could relax and study together outside of classes—her brother had mentioned common rooms to her before, so this must likely be that.

Though, her brother spoke of common rooms within the different Hogwarts houses. She furrowed her brow, trying to think if anyone had ever mentioned anything like a Hogwarts house for Ilvermorny.

Matron Logg did not pause long enough for Dido to finish the thought, as she ushered the girl through the dark space, navigating the room by memory. Hoping not to trip over anything else, Dido kept close to her skirt.

“The assignments are made at the beginning of term,” Matron Logg was saying when Dido focused her attention on her once more, “But you were late—there was no reason to hold a spot for you when we were unsure when you would arrive. You’ll be up top, then. Follow me, child, I am the only one who can open the doors this late.”

It seemed there were a great many doors, all of which were locked without Matron Logg’s wand against the door handles. They raced up first one, then two, then three flights of stairs. Dido found herself to be quite winded once they reached the last flight. With a flick of her wand, small globes around the room suddenly lit up.

It was as Dido imagined the space below to be. A small sitting area, far less elegant than any in her home, but a good deal cozier, she imagined. None of the ostentatious furnishing, no uncomfortable furniture. A few divans, a few armchairs, thick rugs and windows covered by heavy drapes. An unlit fireplace occupied much of one wall, which Dido imagined would be quite cozy come winter. Surely they would need it then, for she heard that mountains had snow, and she could not imagine how cold that would make the school.

“This will be where you might spend your time outside of classes,” Matron Logg informed her. “There is a washroom, just there, which you will be allowed to use tonight if need be. The rooms downstairs have private washrooms, but there is less space here.”

“Of course,” Dido nodded, not really listening to what she was saying.

She was already imagining how happy she would be spending time here, and picturing reading her schoolbooks, speaking with her friends. She smiled slightly. They wouldn’t know here that she was a disgrace, the family shame. This was a fresh start.

“And I imagine,” Matron Logg continued, bringing her down another corridor, this one the most cramped Dido had experienced, “You will be pleased to know you’ve no need to share your sleeping room, _my lady_. We would not wish to offend your delicate sensibilities.”

Dido flushed. It was clear that Lucrezia’s parting words had left an unfavorable impression on the Matron, and she knew it would be quite a bit of work to try and amend whatever image of Dido that the Matron now held. But that was work for later, not for just this moment.

“I’ve no expectations of anything,” Dido tried to say in an assuring manner, but realized as the words came out that they sounded quite snobbish indeed. Well, Merlin’s socks. She was not very good at this, was she?

Matron Logg turned back, her lips in a sharp line and her eyes hard. “I hope that we can please you, Miss Meiriona _Montessea_.”

“Montessier,” Dido corrected quickly, and then absolutely hating herself for it. “And really—I do prefer Dido. We’ve almost forgotten that I am called anything else.”

The witch paused at a door in the middle of the corridor, her hand on the knob, as she faced down the girl. Dido only hoped it was the late hour that made her so unhappy, and that perhaps she could make a better impression in the morning.

“I will call you no such thing, Miss Montessier,” she was told. “This is a school, not a nursery, and we will not be using childish names here. You will be Meiriona to your friends, Miss Montessier to your instructors. Anything else will be in flagrant disrespect of the solemnity of this institution.”

“I-,” Dido faltered, trying to bite back the wetness in her eyes. She had not been scolded like this in a long manner, and never by a stranger. All her hopes of being acceptable here were seeming as stupid and childish as Matron Logg believed her name to be. “I am sorry.”

“Hm,” Matron Logg considered her, before sighing, and wrenching open the door behind her. “This will be you- room 14.”

Dido managed to peer around Matron Logg’s arm. There was not much to see there; a small, cramped room with a bed pushed against one wall directly beneath a window, a wardrobe set into the wall, and a tiny desk with an uncomfortable looking chair beside it. The entire room could not be any larger than the cabin she had shared with Lucrezia on the trip over. But knowing that Matron Logg was watching her, and likely expecting some sort of fit about the condition of the place, Dido kept her features carefully schooled.

“Best sleep now, as we rise early, and you are expected to breakfast regardless of the tardiness of your arrival,” Matron Logg snapped as Dido crossed the threshold into the room.

The air was stale, as if no-one had entered the space in a very long time. Thankfully, she saw no dust on any surface, though the flickering light from the candle by the bed was not the most reliable source. She was surprised that it felt a tad roomier on the inside than she first imagined it to be, and crossed the floor quickly to reach the bed. Leaning over the mattress, she managed to catch a glimpse outside of the treeline behind the sheets of rain sliding down the glass.

“Thank you, Matron Logg,” Dido said softly, not even sure if the woman was still there.

A shifting against the wooden floorboard told Dido she had not left yet. The woman had entered the room as well, and Dido heard the rustling of cloth behind her. Turning around, she caught sight of Matron Logg placing something upon the desk.

“Leave your wet things outside the doorway, and they will be cleaned for you,” Matron Logg explained, as Dido realized she had set down a Dido-sized nightgown for her to change into. Startled, Dido met the gaze of the woman and saw, perhaps, something softer than she first imagined.

“There were other rooms,” Matron Logg said quietly. “But this one had the best view. It seemed… you might like having a window.”

The tears were harder to keep at bay as Dido nodded vigorously. “I-I do,” she managed to say. “I like it very much.”

With that, the Matron left the room. The door locked with an audible click as it shut, leaving Dido alone in the small, foreign space. She quickly stripped herself of her wet robes and dress, chucking even her underthings off, so that she might slide into the blissfully dry nightgown. It was a few sizes too large, and pooled on the ground at her feet, but she did not mind. It was something, a slight kindness.

Two kindnesses, she realized. The nightgown, the window.

But everything else did not feel very kind. Realizing that she could not stop it now, the young girl crawled into the bed, pulling the blankets up around her ears to make sure no-one could hear the sound of her crying. It had been a long time since she’d cried like this- full, body wracking sobs. But she had been travelling for so long—she couldn’t truly remember the last time she slept a full night, and this was all so _new_ and _unpleasant_.

 _Tomorrow will be better_ , she promised herself as she drifted off into sleep. _We’ll open the window, we’ll meet our new friends. Tomorrow will be better_. Her sleep was deep, too deep for dreaming. Her body, exhausted and worn thin, clung to the sleep like a dying man to water.

And then it was interrupted, far too soon, by a sudden loud bang and a voice shouting in her ear.

_“You’re going to be late, you little idiot!”_


	10. The Girl Meets The School

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Overslept, rushed and hurried, Dido finds it harder to make a good impression on her new school than she had hoped. The strange practices here seem to be at odds with what she expected, and Dido must work to avoid getting into trouble.

Dido did not shriek- at first. Though she did consider herself a light sleeper, and could only a handful of times in her entire life recall being awoken with a start, she was dignified enough to wake up with little more than a jolt and a frown. But after sitting up and blinking her eyes a few times, yes, then, Dido did shriek.

There was a very strange man in her room.

That in itself was alarming. A man, in the room where she had been sleeping? Alone? Without chaperone or having announced himself appropriately? Such a thing was scandalously frightful, and Dido had been warned many times over against ever tolerating such an occurrence.

But this was worse than just a man. This was a _strange_ man. He could stand no taller than Dido herself, with leathered skin and large, bat-like ears that sprouted thick, wiry hair. She might have thought him a house elf, and therefore not worth any concern, save for two reasons. First, this little man was dressed significantly better than any house elf, in a proper little outfit of trousers, shirt, and even a neat pair of boots that seemed in such good condition Dido would assume them to be either new or expensive. As a witch from a prominent family, Dido had never seen a house elf dressed so well. But his skin was grey- and she hadn’t heard of a grey-skinned house elf before.

More to the point, though, she had never met a house elf who spoke to a witch or wizard in such a way. The little man showed no sign of repentance for calling her names, and glared at her with watery brown eyes that seemed to challenge her to call him out for it. Not punishing himself over such an egregiously disrespectful remark.

“That was mean,” Dido pointed out, holding the blanket up around her shoulders. “And I don’t think you should be here.”

“Neither should you!” the grey-skinned, rude, little man chastised, pointing his finger at her. “You’ve got all the hens angry, clucking and clacking about it, and you’ll prove them right if you don’t find yourself up and out before the bell!”

“What bell?” Dido demanded, still refusing to move though she was now growing very worried at his words. The hens, did he mean Matron Logg and the other faculty here? Were they really angry with her?

“Six minutes,” the rude, demanding, grey-skinned little man ordered her. “I tell you this now, and Mother Earth witnesses what you do with it.”

Frozen in her bed, Dido tried to make sense of the ramblings. But when he shook his finger at her one more time, then pointed towards the wardrobe, before disappearing without bang, flash or reverberation, Dido decided that this must be the way Ilvermorny woke their students for class. _Six minutes_. Not much time at all, she thought in terror. Flinging back the blankets, she crossed the room in two steps to wrench open the doors to the wardrobe.

Her clothes were all there. Hung up, pressed to remove the wrinkles from traveling, organized by color and occasion. At the very front of the wardrobe was a new set of dark blue robes, complete with a cranberry trim and a twisted golden pin to fasten them together. _Blue and cranberry colors_ , her mother had reminded her before she departed. _And you’re to wear white or black beneath it._

Dido chose black that day, a simple dress that her mother considered entirely unrefined, but Dido had appreciated for the movement allowed. It was, like most of her wardrobe, charmed to self-lace once on, which she appreciated more than anything as she quickly hurried with her stockings. Finding a pair of walking shoes, she slid those on as well, before grabbing the robe and darting from her room.

In the day, the cramped dormitory looked entirely different. Dido was at a loss as to where she should go now, cursing herself for having been too distracted yesterday to remember the path that Matron Logg had taken. The narrow hallway seemed an endless sea of doors, and the rooms behind each one as silent as the next. She went one way, spotting light and imagining that this was where the common room was. Only a few steps down the hallway, a sudden figure appeared once more.

Dido threw herself against a wall in order to not run over the rude, demanding, inconsiderate little grey-skinned man, now blocking the path with his arms crossed over his chest and his bushy eyebrows narrowed.

“You’ll do,” he grumbled to himself. He held something out to her that she snatched without thinking, and began to walk away. When she did not immediately follow, he called back, “Stupid girl, this way!”

Flushing, Dido began to run after him. For a little man he was surprisingly quick. As she followed, she looked down and realized he had given her a hairpin- one of her hairpins, if she was not mistaken by the mother of pearl design. Realizing he must have wanted her to pin her hair out of her face, she tried to simultaneously shrug on her robes, pull up her hair, and keep her feet under her as the little man lead her down a flight of stairs. And then another. And then another. Then they were through the main room and out the door guarding the female dormitory.

“Where are we going?” she managed to ask, feeling half her hair fall out of the knot she had tried to create, but deciding it was better to keep up than be vain.

“Must have made them truly angry, you,” he said, “Was meant to be woken up, but no-one on the floor, no-one remembering to remind you, left you up there. Don’t want to be in trouble your first day? Wouldn’t have caught it if we hadn’t been made to clean it.”

“Trouble?” Dido squeaked, ignoring everything else. “Am I in trouble already?”

He continued to speak, but it was quietly and clearly not meant for her to hear. As it was, she could barely hear her own heartbeat over the sudden rumbling of voices, gradually getting louder with every step she took. If she had more time, she might have been able to count the doors, to make note of the furnishings of the long corridor she was racing down, but just this moment she was mostly focused on keeping herself from fainting from the stress of it all. Why would she be in trouble? Had Lucrezia really made such a poor impression on Matron Logg that the entire school was now out to get her?

They made a sharp left turn, and Dido saw before them a grand archway. The little man slowed suddenly, before coming to an abrupt stop. When Dido realized she would have to either throw herself against another wall (which she was loathe to do) or bring herself to a sharp and sudden halt, she braced herself for impact. But then as she passed through the space the little man should have been in, she found that he had disappeared once more, prompting her to stumble and nearly fall through the archway. Thankfully, a lifetime of dancing along tree limbs and climbing walls gave her enough grace not to fall on her face in front of her new school.

There were nearly a hundred students all gathered together in a room Dido decided was the dining hall. It was not as large as her parents’ ballroom, but certainly more packed than any room she had ever been in before. A series of twelve tables occupied much of the floorspace, with each table containing near eight people. She did the quick maths in her head. _96, give or take a few_ , she decided, making allowances as she noted a few empty seats.

For the most part, they were all dressed as she was, and engrossed enough in their food and conversations that they did not notice her hovering there. Dido was grateful for that, as it gave her an opportunity to try and pin her hair back up in a proper fashion this time—for whatever reason he had done it, the little man had been doing a kindness in handing her the hairpin, as a quick perusal of the room told her all the female students wore their pinned, braided or knotted up. The girls were all pushed to one side, sharing four tables amongst themselves, ( _32_ ) and were managing their conversations in a much quieter manner than the remaining tables.

It was a sea of blue and cranberry, sprinkled with a variety of hairstyles and skin colors. A majority of them were near her age—youths not yet old enough to be considered grown, but tall and intelligent enough to be distancing themselves from childish things. The few students who looked old enough to match Guarin’s age looked significantly more serious than their younger counterparts, and several of them had books with them at their tables.

The rest of the room was surprisingly plain to Dido, who had been raised on stories of floating candles and magic ceilings. Lucrezia’s words from the night before echoed in her ears. This school had once been nothing more than a stone cottage, and even now it was only growing prominent enough to have a name in international wizarding society. There were no great flurries of ghosts, no sea of portraits from previous headmasters and famous students. The school was, like her, young, and still figuring itself out. She smiled to herself, and decided then with the sort of forcefulness she associated with her father, that Ilvermorny was going to be the perfect place to be.

Just as she picked up her foot to make her way to the side of the room where the fellows from her dormitory were sitting, a loud boom reverberated throughout the hallway. Dido gasped, jumping to press her back to the stone wall behind her. None of the other students seemed concerned, though, as they all managed to get to their feet without any gasping or collapsing. Dido was confused at first as to why they were all standing until she saw every chair and table suddenly disappear without a trace. Though there were a few frowns, and someone groaning “ _My wand!_ ” by the general reaction of the student body, this must be a regular occurrence.

The bell, for that must be what it was, rang once more. The students were now moving, organizing themselves in a fashion Dido did not quite understand. From the twelve tables, there were suddenly five lines of students, all facing the same direction. They did so almost seamlessly, without any direction, without any confusion as to where to go. Well, perhaps some confusion, for Dido saw a few of the younger male students pushing one another as they moved. Before the bell could ring a third time, they were all still and orderly, and facing away from Dido.

She tried to stand on her toes, and see over the sea of heads. The boys were the ones standing closest to her, and most of them were too tall for her to be able to have much luck with. She considered moving out from behind the line, but the idea of being caught in a position she was quite certain she was not meant to be in made her pause. It would be better to wait it out, and try to make sense of it later.

“Blessed mornings,” A high voice called out from the opposite side of the room as Dido.

As one, the student population responded, “Blessed morning, Headmistress.”

“We are near finished with the first half of our week, and I must say, I am pleased with our progress thus far,” the first voice continued, “Tell me, Master Flick, have you anything to report?”

A male voice began to speak, his low and annoyed, as compared to the first voice which had been, more than anything else, regal.

“I’ve only three names to summon today,” the man was saying. “I’ve hoped to do better, but some seem eager so early in the year to prove themselves.”

“At your will, then, Master Flick.” The woman told him.

“Jerome Arbutus, you are called before the Headmistress, for an inability to submit an assignment within the required time,” the man, Master Flick, called. “This is your third infraction in kind, and thus requiring public censure. By the request of Professor Fuchs, you are to spend three hours’ worth of unoccupied time assisting his classroom preparations. Do you have a response?”

A thin voice, barely audible, replied, “No, sir.”

“Report to Professor Fuchs after evening meditation, Mister Arbutus,” the female voice ordered.

“Delois Branch, you are called before the Headmistress, for disruptive behavior within the classroom,” Master Flick continued, before letting out a very audible sign, “This is your sixth infraction in kind, and marks your second time before the faculty this term.”

“Sixth?” the Headmistress interrupted, “Mister Branch, is this a new record for you?”

An affable voice, clearly dripping with amusement, replied, “Not yet, Headmistress Stewart. Though I promise I am trying!”

“Six hours in the kitchen,” the Headmistress decreed, sounding rather decidedly unamused. “Tell William I will allow no quarter.”

“As you wish, Headmistress Stewart!” the boy replied, sounding entirely unbothered. “You’re up next, Haiden!”

The students around Dido chuckled to themselves as the Master and Headmistress called the student body back to attention. Dido could see a few of the male students near her rolling their eyes and muttering something amongst themselves. Many of these comments were directed towards a tall young man with sleek black hair and a rather annoyed expression on his face.

“Better luck next week, Mathias,” someone hissed towards the boy. “Maybe Stewart will send him home next time!”

“Not likely,” the black-haired boy said back, “She knows my parents will just send him back next term.”

Dido lost the next few exchanges at the front of the room, for she was suddenly captivated by the way in which the black-haired boy was laughing with his friends. His words intrigued her, yes, for it seemed clear that this troublemaking boy was of some relation to him. But if she were to admit it, part of her fascination with the young man was that he looked unlike anyone she had seen before. She tried to study his features, to decide what it was exactly that was so foreign to her, but was called from her thoughts by a familiar voice suddenly speaking out.

“Matron Logg, have you anything to report?” the Headmistress had asked.

“We have not any infractions to bring before you today, Headmistress,” Matron Logg was saying. “And I hope to preserve this peace in the coming weeks.”

“Wonderful,” the Headmistress responded, “If that is all-.”

“However,” Matron Logg interrupted the woman. Some of the students around Dido seemed surprised by this. “I wish to bring to the Headmistresses’ attention that we have accepted the arrival of a delayed student into the dormitory, despite the timing within the term.”

“Ah,” the Headmistress’ voice was ice, “The girl has arrived, then?”

“Last night,” Matron Logg confirmed.

Dido felt herself turning bright red. Why would Matron Logg feel the need to say such a thing in front of the entire school? Could she not have just spoken with the Headmistress in private? As students began turning to one another, whispering and glancing about excitedly, Dido dreaded the moment they turned around and spotted her.

“Yet the girl did not present herself,” the Headmistress sighed, “We shall not be so lenient as to tolerate such flagrant disregard for practice here, regardless of the circumstances. Had she come for meditation, we might have allowed her tardiness, yet I see no sign of her.”

Dido squeaked, torn between marching up to the woman and declaring her presence, or remaining in her spot and begging forgiveness in private. Unfortunately, that squeak had been enough to alert at least those nearest to her to her presence. Half a dozen young men turned to stare at her, eyes wide. The girl decided that now would be a good time to disappear, much like that strange little man had done. Unfortunately, she did not have such an ability.

“Headmistress!” someone nearby called out, “She’s over here!”

It was that black-haired boy, who Dido decided now must have been so remarkable to her because he had such a wicked nature written into his very features. She glared at him, but he only sent her a cheeky grin. All around him, boys were beginning to take note of her, and call out to the Headmistress. The sea of bodies began to part, one row after the other, slowly revealing to Dido the cluster of people standing at the other end of the room

The first person she noticed was Matron Logg. The woman did not appear much different during the day than she had the night before. She wore her hair coiled up at the back of her neck in a rather severe fashion that made the sharpness of her features stand out. Her loose evening wear had been replaced by a simple grey dress in the Muggle style, with a loose black robe over it. When she spotted Dido, her pale eyes narrowed, though Dido was not sure from this distance if she were annoyed or simply trying to see her from so far away. Beside Matron Logg stood a reedy looking man with a shock of dark hair running in all directions, also dressed in plain black and grey. Dido decided this must be Master Flick.

And between them stood the oldest person Dido had ever seen before. This witch, though stooped with age, had the bearing of one of Dido’s mothers’ friends. Proud, confidant, and very much in command of the room. Her lined face held no compassion, nor did her brown eyes as they made a quick study of the girl. Dido shrank away from the ferocity in her face.

This woman, Dido knew without question, did not like her. And this woman was the Headmistress.

“Meiriona Montessier,” the Headmistress called out. “Come here.”

Dido crept down the makeshift pathway, cringing at every pair of eyes that followed her. All her ideas of seamlessly blending in with the rest of the students, of being accepted as one of them without question, seemed childish. Just like meeting Matron Logg the night before had taken her optimism down a notch, now this humiliation before the student body was doing much the same.

“Did you not deign to eat with your classmates, Meiriona?” the Headmistress demanded as Dido approached.

The way she said Dido’s name seemed provoking. A heavy emphasize on all the wrong syllables, an overly affected accent. As if the woman had heard Lucrezia try to correct Matron Logg the night before, and was now taunting Dido with the knowledge. Even moreso, the Headmistress’ refusal to address her politely, calling her _Meiriona_ , rather than _Miss Montessier_ as she was doing for the other students, felt like a deliberate choice.

Up close, the woman only seemed even older and angrier than Dido first thought. Her hair, fastened atop her head with a pair of golden combs, was a near translucent shade of white, her skin so delicate and thin that Dido could almost see the veins in her face. But by the fire in her eyes, it was clear she was not so frail as to not know hatred, though Dido saw upon approaching her that the woman was leaning heavily upon a cane to remain upright.

 _By why_? Dido wondered. _Why does she despise me so?_ Trying her hardest to appease the Headmistress, Dido murmured something about waking up late. She could feel the weight of stares upon her back as the other students tried to listen in on their conversation.

“Did Matron Logg fail to prepare you for your first day of classes?” the Headmistress asked.

A single glance at the red in Matron Logg’s cheeks told Dido that the woman was furious at such an accusation. Trying to balance alienating the dorm Matron and her Headmistress, Dido shook her head vigorously.

“I am a heavy sleeper!” she lied, “I was so very tired when I arrived last night, I must not have-.”

“I’ve no time for this nonsense,” the Headmistress snapped, waving a hand. “Matron Logg, instruct Meiriona on proper conduct in my school, and send her to me after evening mediation. Students, prepare for your classes and blessed day.”

“Blessed day, Headmistress,” came a chorus of voices from behind Dido.

When the heavy bell rang once more, Dido flinched. She turned back around to see most of the students forgetting her presence, scrambling over themselves to race back out the way Dido had come in. Only a handful remained in the room. There was a pocket of older students, each with serious faces, speaking to one another with a heated air. And then a small collection of students that looked close to her age, who were all studying her closely. Dido was not sure how she felt about the way they were looking at her. A trio of dark haired girls had their heads pressed close together, and were giggling as they looked her up and down.

“Miss Ashburn,” Matron Logg boomed from Dido’s left, causing the girl to jump.

The shortest of the dark haired girls approached where Dido and Matron Logg stood. She had dusky skin with masses of curled brown hair pinned up elegantly around her round face. Dido tapped into her mother’s side to perform as quick of an assessment of this girl as she was doing to Dido. _Wealthy_ , her mother’s voice whispered in her ear. _The dress under her robes is of the latest fashion. Her shoes are designed for fashion, not function, and that hairstyle is difficult without secondhand assistance. Her mother must have taught her the spell for it_.

“You will accompany Miss Montessier to lessons today,” Matron Logg informed the girl. “Ensure that she has the materials she needs, and make proper introductions with the faculty. Deliver her to me before evening meditation.”

“Of course, Matron Logg,” Miss Ashburn said in a lyrical voice. She ducked down into a soft curtsey, looking up through her lashes to watch the older woman’s reaction.

Matron Logg flushed, turning to Dido with narrowed eyes. “Your hair is uneven. Fix that before your first lesson.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've made it to Ilvermorny! Now that the school has been introduced, I want to make a few brief notes about why I am choosing to make differences between Ilvermorny and Hogwarts. One, I wanted an opportunity to try to imagine a different way in which wizarding schools might operate. Second, logistically it seems to me unlikely that the American wizarding school would operate identically to Hogwarts. Different schools! Different times! Over time more of these differences will be revealed (what do you mean, they don't have OWLs?!) but for now I hope there isn't anything too confusing about how Ilvermorny operates!


	11. The Girl Discovers American History

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First day of classes are underway, and Dido finds that there are some unexpected challenges in attending a school on a continent entirely separate from the one she is from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> I unfortunately did not manage to meet my writing goal for the week (coronavirus-related issues) which means that I can only give you one chapter this week! I'm hoping by delivering a few hours early you will be able to forgive me.
> 
> Cheers!

“You haven’t brought anything with you,” the brown-haired girl, Miss Ashburn, pointed out bluntly when Matron Logg left the two of them alone.

Dido flushed, looking around at the other girls. They each had a bound notebook of parchment paper in hand, and carried a few books as well. They must be preparing to leave the dining hall to immediately go to classes.

“I hadn’t realized-,” she began hesitantly.

“We’ve fifteen minutes before our first lesson,” Miss Ashburn interrupted. “We’ll go collect your things now, so we won’t be late.”

“We’ll meet in lessons,” one of the other girls in the group said. She was taller than the others, with pale blue eyes and blue-black hair twisted into a neat braid. “Don’t delay, Helene, you know how _horrible_ Griffig can be about tardiness.”

“Absolutely terrible,” the third girl winked at them, putting her arm through the other girl’s and pulling her from out the dining hall.

Helene Ashburn laughed after them, speaking promises of hurrying. She and Dido followed the other two from the room, separating as the other girls began climbing a large staircase directly opposite the entrance to the dining hall. Helene shepherded Dido down the corridor to the right that lead back to the dorms.

“Where did Logg put you?” Helene asked, her voice bursting with a suspicious degree of sincerity.

“On the fourth floor,” Dido admitted, “With a window.”

“Oh, how _lovely_ ,” Helene simpered as they ducked through the low portal into the female dormitory, “No-one above you to stomp all night, that must be a blessing.”

The main room in the dormitory was bursting with motion. Girls were frantically racing about, slamming doors and shouting words at one another as they rushed to finish their preparations for the day. Dido had to duck as someone threw a textbook across the room, which their friend promptly caught with a shout of thanks before rushing out the open door beside Dido. The girl stumbled, trying to maintain her balance as the chaos intensified with every second.

“I can wait for you here,” Helene promised as she hovered by the portal. Her green eyes surveyed the room with a fair amount of apprehension. “You’ll just need note paper and a quill or two. Hurry so you’re not late!”

Dido assured the girl that she would be ask quick as she could. She darted across the room, making her way to where she remembered the staircase to be with much weaving and dodging between the flailing bodies. The staircase, already narrow when unoccupied, was difficult to climb up when everyone else was thundering down. But Dido was small, smaller than more of the others in the dorm, and managed to make it to the fourth floor without too much delay. Thankfully, it seemed all the girls on her floor had already departed for the morning, making it quite easy to navigate this finale flight. It did take her a few extra minutes to remember which room, exactly, was hers, but after tugging on a few more locked doors she managed to pull hers open.

The bed had been made and, rather helpfully, someone had pulled out her brother’s satchel of books as well as several blank notebooks and quills already. Dido wondered if it had been the strange little man, so mean in his words, but she was rapidly realizing was quite helpful. She snatched them all up, shoving the notebooks into the satchel, before turning around and running back to where she had left Helene. This time it was easier, as the dormitory had almost completely emptied out, and Dido was going with the river of bodies this time instead of swimming upstream.

But when she approached the portal out of the dormitory, Dido froze. She spun around, her dark eyes taking in the nearly-empty room with a growing degree of concern. There were few left, only two girls in one corner looking as if they could barely read the books open beside them. And these girls were far older than Dido, which meant they likely would be no help to her at all. For Helene was no longer there. And without Helene, Dido was entirely lost. She stepped through the portal, glancing down the now-empty hall without spotting her guide. Dido tried to convince herself that the girl must have forgotten her, or that she had needed something from her dorm as well and returned thinking Dido had gone on without her. But with sinking suspicion, she doubted either scenario.

There were two options. Dido could remain here, hoping Helene returned, risking arriving tardy to or missing her first class entirely. Or she could try to find the class on her own, despite never having been in the school before. Before an entire minute could pass, she knew what she had to do. There was a significant chance Helene had abandoned her intentionally, though Dido could not imagine why the girl would do such a thing, which meant Dido was entirely on her own.

She retraced her steps, making her way back to the staircase where she had seen Helene’s two friends disappear to. Her fingers trembled as she climbed her way up. She thanked Merlin that she had always been so fond of climbing things, otherwise so many flights of stairs every day would destroy her. The halls were empty, though Dido hoped the absence of a bell indicated she still had time left. She ran the flight of stairs, coming to a stop on the next floor. The stairs continued upwards, indicating at least a third floor, but she prayed that this one would be the correct floor.

The short corridor did not give her many options. Directly in front of her were two small doors near one another with signage indicating a washroom, which she immediately disregarded. Further down, a two doors facing off with one another, and the corridor itself ending at the face to two additional doors. Each door had a large number painted upon it, indicating to Dido that these were the first four classrooms. The first door on her left, labeled _3_ , had a soft swell of voices behind it. When she crept forward, doors _1_ and _4_ similarly contained noise. One out of three chances, Dido thought to herself. She took the middle one, quietly pulling open door number _3._

By the familiar gleam of curled brown hair at the front of the room, Dido knew she was successful. Helene Ashburn sat at the first row, her two friends on either side. They were whispering to one another and giggling all the while. Dido felt a hot resentment burning in her chest for having been quite obviously tricked. Deciding to ignore the girls, Dido cast her gaze about to find a place to sit.

The classroom was with a tiered floor so that the last row of seats could see the blackboard just as well as the front rows. There were five rows in total, each with six individual desks, the last two of which were empty. The first row appeared entirely occupied by girls, including the three Dido had already had the unfortunate to meet. The two proceeding rows were almost entirely occupied with boys- save one seat by the far wall which was piled with various bookbags. Realizing she would either have to sit surrounded by boys or in a row entirely to herself, Dido reluctantly stepped down a tier and took a seat.

Only a minute or so later, the loud bell rang again, telling Dido she had made it to her class on time.

The professor at the front of the room began to speak only seconds after the bell finished ringing, and at first Dido could not make sense of his words, partly because her ears were still ringing and partly because he had the most peculiar accent. By now she could recognize the harsh strains of the American voice, but this one was twisted somehow to be even further intelligible. The man was rather short, with a wide frame, dressed in an elegant set of wizard’s robes. His black hair was short and straight, though the long beard he wore belied much of the sophistication of the rest of his appearance. When he spoke, he waved his hands animatedly. At some cue of his Dido did not entirely pick up, the students began to file out of their seats and hand him sheets of parchment. He accepted each with a nod, and a mutter.

By the time the entire class had submitted whatever the assignment had been, Dido realized that she was likely going to be in trouble for not having prepared anything for class. She hoped he would be understanding about the subject, but unfortunately if the past twelve hours had taught her anything it was that no-one at this school was forgiving of anything. But if she was to learn anything, she would need to suffer through whatever ridiculous hazing they thought necessary. So she raised a hand.

The professor looked up and caught her almost immediately. He narrowed his eyes, cocking his head to the side before garbling something out she could barely comprehend.

“You’re new, aren’t you?” he said.

In the front row, Dido saw Helene’s shoulders tense. The girl waited a beat before turning around and looking at Dido with wide, unbelieving eyes. Deciding to put pettiness aside for now, until she decided that Helene truly wanted to be her enemy, Dido only smiled back. The other students seemed less invested in Dido’s sudden appearance in the back of the classroom- two of the other three girls did not even turn back, and the boys seemed more occupied in laughing amongst themselves than paying attention to what she was doing. Dido was thankful they at least weren’t actively against her yet.

“Yes, sir,” Dido said, “I arrived just last night. I was wondering what assignment I had missed, and if there is anything I can do to bring myself to the level of my classmates?”

The man smiled, gesturing for her to stand. She did, but his gesturing did not stop. Flushing, Dido picked her way down the stairs to the front of the classroom. Up close, she could tell that the professor was well into middle age, with a few fine lines around the corners of his eyes, but a rather pleasant face and a becoming smile. His eyes were a lovely teal which seemed to be the kindest she had seen since arriving.

“What is your name?” he asked her. _Vhat ees your nam?_

Dido had no idea where such an accent might have come from, but grew determined to learn it as quickly as possible. “I’m Dido Montessier,” she said by way of introduction, performing a small, and much more elegant version of Helene’s, curtsey.

“Dido?” the man frowned. He picked up a piece of paper off his lectern. “Meiriona, it is? Not Dido.”

Of all the Americans she had met, he said her name closest to how it was meant to be pronounced. In his accented voice, it was almost not unpleasant. And, realizing that she had done exactly what Matron Logg had chided her against, Dido flushed.

“Yes, sir, Meiriona Montessier,” she corrected.

“We’ve only come three weeks,” he assured her, “Visit Herr Wanamaker during your lunch hour, he will provide the books you need. Are you familiar with the history here?”

“Magical history?” Dido squeaked, “I’ve read some-.”

“Nein,” the man shook his head, “ _American_ history. Are you familiar?”

She bit her lip, “No, sir.”

The professor broke into a wide grin, “Fresh minds for learning! Very good. We are on chapter five- no need to worry about written, but catch up on the reading before next lesson. Ja?”

“Ja-, erm, yes,” Dido managed. The professor waved her off, and leapt right into lecturing before she even made it to her seat.

Dido scrambled for a quill and paper, thankful her mother had purchased her the self-inking quills, and scrambled a quick _History of America_ atop the page in her notebook.

“-the Puritas separated from the Dutch immigrant community in 1604, desiring a purer form of magical experience based not on modern iconography, but ancient runic practices,” the professor was saying, facing away from the class and writing hastily across the board in nearly illegible script.

Dido wrote _Puritas_ with a question mark beside it, adding a note to spend time specifically researching that term. She focused her notes less on comprehensible sentences and more on comprehensive repetitions of what the professor was saying, trusting that when she caught up on the reading material his words would make sense to her. Unfortunately, this meant she copied down far more words than was comfortable for her unpracticed hand. She could not count the pages she filled, only prayed to Merlin that the ink would not smear as she turned to the next one, trying to capture everything she could about what was said.

The lesson was long- painfully so. By the time the professor seemed content to end his lecture, Dido’s head was swimming with unfamiliar words and unfamiliar concepts. But she blew the ink on the page dry, and carefully slid her notebook into her bag so that she might follow the flow of her classmates to their next lesson. She kept her eyes fixed on Helene Ashburn and her group, figuring that at the very least she would have all her classes with those three—Matron Logg seemed to have suggested that they would be spending the day together. Helene walked out of the room without deigning to look in Dido’s direction, not even bothering to fake an apology about abandoning her in the dorm.

One of her friends paused though as Dido made to get up from her desk. She had been the third girl who had winked at Helene earlier that day. Something about her face seemed familiar to Dido, but the young girl couldn’t quite place what it was. The girl was smiling at her prettily enough, and stretched out a hand to assist Dido in standing. Reluctantly, Dido accepted it.

“So, English,” the girl said, pulling Dido to her feet sharply, nearly yanking her arm from her socket, “Seems you keep only making it in the nick of time. Do they not have clocks in England?”

Dido wrenched her hand away, wincing as blood rushed back into her crushed fingers. But she kept her pleasant smile on her face. “I believe we do, though of course I have never seen one myself. Are they quite common here?”

The girl scrunched up her nose as if she could not tell if Dido was truly an idiot, or if she was making fun at her. Though when her narrow brown eyes narrowed even further, Dido suspected she had caught on to the very thinly veiled mockery. Instead of responding, the girl stomped off. Dido managed a small smile before following, her satchel slung over her shoulder and her head slightly higher than it had been before. She could handle rude classmates. And even though she was behind, she was quite certain she could catch up.

Dido followed the flow of bodies out the corridor and down the stairs once more, but she frowned as students began to fill back into the dining hall once more. Surely it was not time for lunch already? There were not enough windows in the corridors for Dido to be able to guess what time it was- but assuming the first lesson was no more than two hours, she doubted that there was enough time between their breakfast and now for them to be attending another meal. But no, the room was barely more than half full, she noticed, and there were only a handful of tables present this time, six in total, though most of them had quite a few empty seats. Dido noted all her female classmates gravitating towards two tables to one side of the room, and assumed that this is where she was meant to be as well.

 _Distinction_ , she thought to herself, _Ilvermorny divides many things by gender_.

The dormitories, the seating arrangements, all by gender. Dido was more than a little surprised that they tolerated even having students of the opposite gender within the same classroom, though she knew Hogwarts did not have so serious an attitude on the subject. Guarin had told her that boys and girls shared dormitories! Though, he had made it clear the rooms were separated from one another.

The table she selected had only three empty chairs. Most of the girls she did not recognize at the table, though one she knew from her last class, though the empty seat beside her had already been filled by the girls’ bookbag. That left only two seats, both on either side of a girl Dido had not met or seen before.

The girl did not look at Dido as she sat in the seat directly to her right, but Dido looked at her. She seemed different from the rest of the girls in the room, not only because unlike the rest of the female students she wore her hair down in flagrant disregard for what Dido assumed was a school rule. Her hair was long, a deep black color with thick, heavy strands that seemed to defy curls or waves, and it reached well beyond her waist. Her skin was a rosy copper-brown, which gleamed against the white of the blouse she wore, which was untucked from her blue skirt. The school robe had been flung carelessly over the back of her seat. As Dido studied her profile, she took note of the girl’s high cheekbones and strong nose, but also the dark expression in her eyes as the girl glowered at the room around them.

“Hello,” Dido said cautiously, hoping she was not being rude by introducing herself, “I’m-.”

The girl turned physically away, clearly rebuffing Dido’s attempts at friendliness. At this point, Dido had been expecting something far worse, and did not feel too put out by it.

If she was being honest with herself, she was not necessarily too bothered by the fact that not a single student in this school seemed willing to be her friend. Besides her brother, Dido never really had friends growing up, and though she was sure to be lonely staying at a place so far from home, she could not imagine the loneliness being too bothersome as to stress over it. So long as there was no outright antagonisms between her and the other students, she would consider it a win.

Thankfully, the reason for their presence was quickly revealed to Dido and she managed to turn her mind away from the unfriendliness of her neighbors to focus on the task at hand. She recognized her professor from before as he walked into the room, arm in arm with a man who looked stunningly similar. This new professor was a few inches taller than the first, with sandy blonde hair to his companion’s black, but besides these differences the two were near identical.

“Hello!” her professor called out, waving gaily.

His companion brought out his wand, and with a wave, a series of books landed on each table. Dido reached for one, only to be stopped by a glare from the girl sitting next to her. Glancing around, Dido realized no-one else had taken a book either, and settled back into her seat.

“We are working on Latin today,” the second wizard told them. He had an accent near identical to the first professor, which did not surprise Dido. Thankfully, she had some practice now at listening to it. “Leor and I have looked over your primers from last week, and are not disappointed in the work you have done.”

Her professor, Leor, caught sight of Dido and turned to mumble something in the other wizard’s ear. Teal eyes turned towards her again, and Dido fought the urge to shrink back from the matching gazes.

“Students at beginning, start copying the conjugations on page twenty-three. Intermediate, the conjugations on seventy-eight. Advanced, you may begin with page one hundred and fourteen,” the blond wizard ordered, followed by a flurry of motion as hands snatched up books and pages were turned. The wizard had not turned away from Dido yet, though, and gestured for her to approach.

Leaving her satchel at the table, Dido approached the two wizards. While her professor kept his affable grin, the second one had a more serious expression on his face, which made Dido nervous. Serious was not necessarily bad, but it hid his feelings well and she wanted to know sooner rather than later if he was one of the members of faculty who already hated her.

“Miss Montessier?” he asked as she reached them. “Am I incorrect to assume you are of relation to Onfroi Montessier?”

Dido nodded, not missing the way the man’s face soured at her confirmation. _Wonderful,_ she thought to herself _, another enemy of my father’s._ For what reason this man despised her family, she could not say, but it was rather obnoxious to have to deal with here as well.

“Children are not fathers,” the smiling wizard reminded the other, “Otherwise we would be much less pleasant to be around.”

The blond wizard managed a smile at that, and Dido felt some of her annoyance fade, “Miss Montessier looks far too kind to wreak the havoc of her father. Have you any experience with the classical languages?”

Storing away that peculiar statement for later, Dido nodded once more.

“You can speak, you know,” the blond wizard told her. “Just because we sound like foreign fools does not mean you cannot babble with us. Have I introduced myself? I am Gregory Griffig, Professor of Magical History. And you’ve just had class with Leor?”

“Yes,” Dido replied. _The Griffig brothers_. “It was enlightening.”

“She was lost as a duck at sea,” Leor Griffig chuckled, “We shall straighten that out. How much do you know?”

Realizing he meant about classical languages, not American or general magical history, Dido began a soft explanation of the lessons her father had put her through. While no witch or wizard would boast an extensive knowledge in the classical languages, Greek and Latin, her father had convinced himself that it was an important foundation in magical training. Most of their spells had Greek or Latin roots, and he thought it would give his children a leg up on understanding unfamiliar magic if they could trace the meaning behind the words.

“I hate the man, but his logic is flawless,” Gregory Griffig complained, “We have assessments for all new students to see where they are. You are required to attend at least a year of language training, but perhaps you will need to study less if you are well trained already.” A stack of parchment appeared in his hand with scrawled words in a variety of languages and scripts, which he held out to the girl.

“It seems a good many people do hate him,” she said, not truly thinking about the words coming out of her mouth. She was too distracted by trying to read the test, and was allowing her mind to ramble in the process, “If he were hated any less, I might not be here, but if he were hated any more, I suppose I wouldn’t have been allowed here at all.”

To her surprise, both brothers laughed at that, before shooing her off to her table. She sat down without paying attention to the others there, ignoring the way they shot suspicious looks at her for making their professors laugh, and picked up her quill.

 _Tullia est filia reginae. **Translate**_.

Dido smiled. Something she could do.


	12. The Girl Finishes Her Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> End of the first day of classes!

The room rearranged itself after the language lessons finished, so that the rest of the school could fill in during the lunch hour. Dido made sure to follow the lead of the other girls in her year, unsure if there was a seating arrangement she needed to follow. Unfortunately, when she went to sit down at the table largely occupied by five of the other girls in her year, she found herself quickly blocked and pushed away. When she stumbled, the dark-haired trio giggled, and whispered to one another things Dido was quite certain were not pleasant. She kept her face from flushing, held her head high, and made to find somewhere else to sit.

Glancing around, Dido could see only one table with empty seats. For an eight-person table, there were only two others sitting there; that same frizzy haired girl in her year, and the dark skinned and proud looking girl that had to be in one of the years above her. There was ample space between both girls, and they did not seem to be acknowledging one another’s presences at all. Recalling how little the proud girl had wanted to be her friend, so Dido made her way to the other girl this time, sitting down beside her with a smile. The girl had unfastened her robes almost all the way, and Dido saw she wore a rather plain grey cotton dress that seemed to suggest no form or fashion.

“We have not been introduced,” Dido said, “You’re another first year, yes?”

“I am,” the girl replied. Her tone was neither hostile nor welcoming, but rather entirely unenthused for whatever it might be that Dido was saying. And, catching that the girl did not offer her name, Dido made the connection that she was equally as unfriendly as the other.

 _Oh well_ , Dido thought, before putting ideas of friendship from her mind. Instead she focused on the gnawing feeling of hunger in her stomach, trying not to think about how long it had been since she had a proper meal. She glanced around eagerly, trying to figure out if there was a cue for eating that she could help initiate. But the other students were all sitting casually at their seats, talking to their friends and looking as if they had no cares in the world.

Ah, there it came. That awful bell once again. Dido wondered if the other students weren’t truly unfriendly, but only afflicted with poor hearing because of the repeated trauma of the bell. But with the sound came the sudden arrival of a sea of grey-skinned little people. Dido gasped, recognizing their appearance, if not the specific one that had helped her that morning. The frizzy haired girl glanced at her, but made no comment to Dido’s reaction.

Each person was carrying a tray with them, and darted across the room to deliver dishes around the room. Each table seemed to be treated with two trays, whose contents Dido could not quite make out from such a distance. Her table, far in the corner, seemed to be of a lower priority than the others, and Dido had to wait for several long moments before anything came their way. But when one of the creatures made a beeline for their table, Dido ignored her curiosity about the creatures long enough to get excited about getting to eat something, finally.

And then all her hopes came crashing down the same time the tray fell out of the little person’s hands and landed face down upon the table, splattering food in various directions. Dido was blissfully spared the worst of it, and her companion had only a little of a mysterious grey substance near her neck. The proud girl, however, was nearly entirely covered in a vibrant sauce Dido did not recognize. Without even realizing it, Dido had let out a little shriek and half stood in her seat, hands outstretched as if she could somehow offer help with the stained clothing.

But neither her companions seemed much surprised or shocked. The frizzy haired girl only dabbed at her dress with a napkin, while the other one flicked sauce out of her eyes. Dido looked over at the creature, quite certain that she would be upset for having lost control of her tray, for Dido believed she caught a hint of feminine in the shape and dress of the creature, but for some reason it seemed to be more pleased than it should have been. Until, of course, the dark eyes met Dido’s and the creature’s skin flushed a strange green-grey color.

“Sorry,” the creature muttered, ducking her head, and disappearing without warning.

The dark haired girl shouted a curse in a language Dido did not understand, but seemed to be doing so without much emotion. As if this was routine to her. And even when Dido looked around the rest of the dining hall, very few seemed to have noticed what was going on.

“What was that?” Dido demanded of her tablemates, frustrated at not understanding the bizarre exchange.

The frizzy haired girl actually bothered to look up this time, “The Pukwudgies really hate her,” she complained, “Something always goes wrong. Too cold, too hot, raw, overcooked, or dropped all over the table.”

The other girl snorted, “You give me too much credit.”

“But your clothes!” Dido protested weakly, gesturing to the ruined blouse (and she warranted even the skirt had stains too).

“That’s what the robe is for,” the girl replied hotly, adding something in her own language that Dido could tell was an insult.

Still wanting to protest the situation, but finding herself at a loss on how to do so, Dido kept her mouth shut and tried to ignore the turmoil in her head. No wonder no-one wanted to sit here, Dido realized, if it meant not getting any food and being in the splash zone of some peculiar feud between students and these creatures, _Pukwudgie_ , the other one had called them.

Thankfully, some of this frustration was eased when another creature, another Pukwudgie, reappeared with a fresh tray of food, which he set down gingerly in the center of the table. Dido eagerly reached to serve herself before something else horrible could happen, not paying mind to whatever strange things she put on her plate. There were greens, which she thought she recognized, and a meat of some kind (though she did not know what it was) which was covered in the same sauce that now decorated the proud girl’s clothing. To be quite honest, Dido did not much care what the food was, for she was starving, and it was quite delicious.

And even more thankfully, the rest of the lunch hour passed without incident. Dido stood when the rest of the students did, making sure to pick up anything she wanted to keep before the tables disappeared, and followed her classmates out of the hall as they navigated their way to their next class. This time they climbed up two flights of stairs, to the top floor of the main building. She kept close to the others as they pushed their way through the door of room _6_. She narrowly avoided having the door swing to a close on her heels as she entered a space entirely filled with so many scents and various steams that she knew instantly which class this was.

Potions.

She was a little worried, though not in the same way she worried about her American history course. She had some basic knowledge of potions, but it had never been anything she had focused her studying on before. As her father’s pet, he trained her in flashy shows of magical prowess, such as transfiguration and charms. Potions required hands-on learning, a variety of materials and ingredients, and neither of her parents put much stock in it as a field of study. Compared to her other magical talents, potions was particularly weak.

This professor seemed to home in on this weakness the moment she stepped into the room. He towered over any of the other professors she had seen, even most people she had met before. He was lean, which helped make him less intimidating, though his thick black beard did much to increase the gravity of his features. He wore dark green wizarding robes with noticeably tight sleeves, the color of which set off his deep brown skin rather nicely. And his brown eyes focused in on Dido’s face as she hovered in the back of the classroom.

“Meiriona Montessier,” he grumbled in a deep voice, “Merrythought warned me about you.”

She noticed a few things immediately. First, that he knew her name without needing an introduction, which she supposed was a nice thing. And while it seemed he had learned her name through that Arabella Merrythought woman, who Dido had thought to be a nice enough person, the manner in which Merrythought must have mentioned her seemed to have left something wanting. For the word he used was _warned_. Not _informed._ Not _told._

She sighed, preparing for another miserable lesson. And she was not disappointed. While the professor, Fuchs remembered Merrythought calling him, seemed to be planning on lecturing to the class much like Leor Griffig had for their first class, he did not allow Dido to take notes on his lectures.

“You’re six chapters behind, and missed a test,” he informed her coldly, putting her in a table in the back of the room while dropping a pile of books in her lap. “Begin with _The Art of Potion Making_ , there’s five chapters there, and then you need to read chapter one of _The Modern Potion Cookbook._ And take notes. See me before our Friday lesson to take the test.”

So Dido settled in the back, pulling the first hefty volume towards her and turning to the first page. _What is potions?_ With a sigh, she picked up her quill and began to write. She made a decent headway into the first book, but the class ended before she could finish it off. Professor Fuchs came back to see her as the rest of her classmates trickled out the door, taking the books back with barely a perusal of the notes she had taken thus far.

“Master Wanamaker will provide personal copies of the required texts when you make it to the library,” he told her, “There’s a report due on _Shrinking Solution_ Friday, two-pages at least.”

Friday was only two days away. Dido felt almost as if she were drowning in the required potions work, but mustered a brave face.

“Would it be a bother to point me towards the library?” she ventured to ask, figuring that it would better to try and figure it out sooner than later. “I’ve not yet found my way entirely around.”

He made a face at that, though Dido was uncertain exactly what it was that displeased him. That she did not know her way yet? That she bothered him about it? But he gave a few brief words which she memorized, with thanks that the school itself did not seem entirely complicated. He also warned her that she would have a thirty-minute break before her next class, which he said rather pointedly would occur in room _4._ Even though he was speaking to her as if she were an idiot, she was grateful that he made the effort, for she had lost her unwilling guides in the course of their conversation.

Exiting the classroom, she debated going first to the library to pick up her books, before deciding against it. Better be early to the next lesson, than risk being late when no-one seemed to be sympathetic to her newly arrived status. She remembered where this room was from earlier in the day, and went down a flight of stairs to find herself standing in front of the door for her next lesson. There were clumps and clusters of students all around her, talking to one another, sharing notes, but Dido could recognize among them none of the students of her year. She remained hovering there until nearabout when she knew the bell would ring, before pulling open the door and sliding inside.

A small cluster of students were already inside, must have come straight from potions to save their seats. Dido let out a sigh of relief when the dark-haired trio did not appear present. She decided this time to be brave, and approach the lone woman standing at the front of the room, facing the blackboard and scrawling out some words in chalk. The woman did not notice Dido’s approach, so when Dido reached her she coughed slightly to let the woman know she was there.

“Oh!” the professor gasped, jumping and dropping her chalk in fright.

Dido paled, “I am sorry, I did not intend to-.”

“Oh, don’t you worry about it,” the woman waved her off, already on her hands and knees trying to collect the dropped chalk.

Dido quickly bent down to retrieve the chalk for her, locating it underneath the lectern, hoping to win back whatever points she might have lost by frightening her professor. But when the woman accepted it, she did so with a warm and sincere smile, which brightened Dido’s spirits slightly. She had a sweet face, and seemed to be awfully young for a professor.

“Hello, you,” the woman smiled, “I’m Hyacinth- that is, Professor Hya-, Professor Owler, pleasure to meet you. Are you the latecomer?”

“Er, yes, I am,” Dido replied, flustered by the apparently flustered nature of Professor Owler. “Meiriona Montessier.”

“What a lovely name!” Professor Owler clapped her hands together, sending the chalk flying. She began fishing her wand out of the sleeve of her lilac robes “Oh drat. Well, _accio_!”

The chalk flew back into her hand, but in order to catch it she dropped her wand on the ground. This, Dido retrieved for her, ignoring the way her fingers grew numb when handling the other witch’s wand. Professor Owler accepted it without a word, instead launching immediately into a long tale about how often she had dropped her wand in bodies of water before, and isn’t that awkward to try and fish out. All the while, Dido heard the door behind her opening and closing a handful of times, telling her of the arrival of the other students.

When the bell rang, Professor Owler seemed to notice that it was not just her and Dido. At the sight of a classroom full of seated students, Professor Owler immediately launched into her prepared lecture on _the Theory of Charms_ , leaving Dido standing awkwardly beside her. Unsure if she should simply find a seat, or wait for the professor to remember her once more, Dido hovered there for a moment before someone made the decision for her. A small boy with ruffled auburn hair and a large pair of spectacles raised a hand, clearing his throat to distract Professor Owler from her rant.

“Yes, Potts, oh, Bucket, Bucket?” Professor Owler acknowledged his hand.

“Should we reorganize our seats for Miss Montessier?” the boy, whose name Dido hoped had something to do with a Bucket, inquired.

Professor Owler gasped, turning back to Dido as she was suddenly forced to remember her existence. Dido smiled, but that smile quickly turned into a shocked frown as Professor Owler ordered everyone out of their seats.

“Up, up!” the woman shouted. “We’ve got to figure this out once more. Where did you go, Covington? No, Rooks have to stay together. Are we going by first name or last?”

It quickly became clear to Dido that Professor Owler had organized the seats in some bizarre combination of height, age and name (though, as the woman had stated, no-one was quite certain whether she chose by first or last name). Dido thought last names had to weigh rather heavily, for the three students who had shockingly similar faces and all bore the last name Rook remained seated together in one corner without ever having moved. The other students danced around one another in a flurry of robes and paper, laughing and shouting as they tried to jostle for better seats.

Somehow, Dido ended up sitting between Helene Ashburn, and a boy she had not noticed before named Arum Silverthorne. It was quite clear that Helene and Arum had a friendship already, for Dido had to frequently lean back in her seat so that Helene could lean over and speak to Arum directly. But for his part, the boy aptly named with silver-blond hair, did attempt at times to include Dido in the conversation. But, as these conversations seemed to be occurring largely in the middle of Professor Owler’s lecture, Dido could not help but rebuff most of his attempts to include her. He did not seem perturbed by this, and continued to whisper to her even when Helene made it obvious how much she disliked this behavior. As it was, Dido could not be certain if he was trying to befriend her simply because it was part of his nature or if he was aiming to annoy Helene. Either way, Dido decided it was not worth getting in the middle of, though she could only make such a decision figuratively, and not physically.

Professor Owler’s lecture ended abruptly with the announcement of the bell. She seemed startled out of her speech, which Dido thought to be fair considering the fact that she had not even noticed her students misbehaving for the entire period. Instead of rushing out the door like the rest of the students, Dido placed her materials in her bag, before cautiously approaching the Professor once more.

“Is there anything you wish me to do to catch up?” Dido asked the woman, choosing bluntness over subtlety.

“Oh, no,” Professor Owler shook her head, cramming loose sheets of parchment into a briefcase without looking at what she was doing. “Just borrow notes from a friend, yes? You’ll do swimmingly. Next week we’re beginning with spells!”

Though Dido did not have friends to borrow notes from, she was certain that would not matter overly. It seemed likely no-one else in the course had even been taking notes, anyway, and she had her brother’s old books to fall back on if she felt as if she was lost at sea. Charms was something she was quite good at, besides. So, after reminding her professor not to leave her wand on the lectern, Dido left the classroom fairly confident that she had not made an entire mess of her first day.

She left the classroom with a soft smile on her face, making a mental note of all the work she would need to complete in the next few days, but feeling like things were not entirely hopeless. Afterall, she enjoyed studying! She loved learning! And while she had mountains of reading to complete, this was nothing a few late nights could not fix. First thing, she would need to find her way to the library and collect the books that her professors mentioned her needing to read.

That plan stopped the moment she stepped outside the charms classroom. Helene Ashburn stood there, flanked on either side by her friends, with her arms crossed over her chest and a furious expression on her face. Dido breathed in deeply, preparing for whatever unpleasantness Helene decided she was worth now.

“Look at how happy Mariana is,” the rudest of the three snapped. “Do you think Howler will ever learn your name, or should we just start coming up with new ones every day?”

“I think Mariana is a lovely name,” Dido responded. “And I’ve still not learned yours.”

“And you won’t,” the rude one said sharply. “I wouldn’t want a Brit to dirty my name with her mouth.”

“Save the fire,” the third one cautioned, placing a hand on the arm of her riled up friend.

At that moment the door behind Dido burst open, and Professor Owler stumbled out, nearly knocking Dido over. The woman straightened up, nearly spilling all of her papers on the floor, and stared at the four of them with wide green eyes.

“Philippa, Joanna, Helen, Miriam,” the professor muttered under her breath, casting her gaze at the four of them individually for each name.

Given that she said _Miriam_ when looking at the angry one, _Joanna_ when looking at Helene, and _Philippa_ when looking at Dido, the girl knew she could not trust any of the options given. But she smiled and waved as Professor Owler then bustled past them, still muttering under her breath.

“Madwoman,” the girl called _Helen_ , but likely named something else entirely, snorted. “If our parents knew she was teaching here, can you imagine the scandal?”

“Delois says she’s a doll, really,” the rude one shrugged.

When she mentioned the name Delois, Dido suddenly realized why she looked familiar. She had the same blue-black hair as the boy that spotted Dido during breakfast, the one named Mathias Branch, whose brother Delois seemed to be something of a troublemaker. This girl, likely not Joanna, was a Branch, sister to the other two. Dido must have been puzzling over her features because the girl made a rude face towards Dido, and performed a rather threatening gesture.

“Stop that,” Helene snapped. “You, I need to deliver to Matron Logg. Come on.”

Not wanting to cause more trouble, Dido obediently trotted along after Helene as the other girl wove through the milling students. At first, Dido assumed they would have gone directly to the dorm, but instead Helene brought them through the dining hall once more. In the dining hall, students were beginning to line up in that familiar pattern from this morning. Helene pulled her along the side wall where most of the girls were standing, and with a strong push of her hands, sent her directly into the path of the approaching Matron Logg.

The older witch caught her with two hands, her frown deepening as she caught sight of what was most likely Dido’s still lopsided hair. But she did not comment on it, and instead drew her off to the side as the rest of the students poured into the dining hall.

“Any incidents?” the Matron murmured, eyes scanning the female students, but her words clearly directed towards Dido.

Dido was unsure if she meant the kind that seemed to warrant public censure, or just general complaints about the day. Regardless of how annoying, or rude, some people were, Dido was quite certain the best response was to simply shake her head and keep her eyes focused at the front of the room. She was not disappointed when, after a few awkward moments standing beside the Matron, the Headmistress reappeared.

The woman looked the same as she had early in the day; old, commanding and, when her eyes immediately found Dido, still angry. Though tired from the day, Dido refused to let any of that fatigue show as the older witch studied her. She focused on keeping her face neutral and back straight as the Headmistress launched into another small speech, similar to the one from the morning, though this time without any public humiliations of her students. She spoke reminders for certain gatherings, awarded praise to one student who had completed a rather complicated spell that afternoon, and finally bid them all a blessed meal.

While the chairs and tables began to reappear across the dining hall, the Headmistress turned back towards Dido. With a crook of one of her bent fingers, Dido remembered that she had an appointment with the elderly witch. Matron Logg took her by the arm, and together the two of them followed the Headmistress out of the dining hall and into the shadows of the corridor outside.


	13. The Girl Meets the Headmistress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe she will finally get answers as to why everyone seems to... dislike her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late post!

More stairs. Dido was quite certain she was climbing more here at Ilvermorny than she would be at home, trees and roofs included. Matron Logg escorted Dido in the shadow of the Headmistress as they passed first through the entry hall that Dido had come in the night before, and then into a side chamber Dido had not noticed. And then came the stairs. The Headmistress seemed unfazed by the flights they wandered up, Dido growing more amazed with each step. The old witch seemed ancient, and yet she managed one, two, three, four, five flights of stairs while barely pausing to breathe. Even Matron Logg seemed winded by the experience, her cheeks flushed from the exertion. Dido was unsure if her heart was beating so rapidly from the exercise or from her nerves.

 _Headmistress Stewart_ , Matron Logg had called her when arguing with Lucrezia. Having stored that piece of information away at the time, Dido was now quite pleased to have something to arm herself with.

They arrived at a narrow doorway at the top of the fifth flight of stairs, where finally they came to a halt. The landing was barely large enough for the three of them, and Dido remained balanced several steps down, shrinking her to the height of only Matron Logg’s knees as the two witches regarded one another.

“Shall I escort her back?” Matron Logg asked. Her tone was different while the two of them were alone. Still respectful, but without that stony weight to it she utilized in public.

“The girl will be fine on her own,” Headmistress Stewart replied tersely.

The dismissal did not seem to offend Matron Logg, who turned quickly and began to head back down the stairs, leaving Dido alone with the elderly witch. When she brushed passed the girl, Dido made sure to press herself against the wall so that she would not be knocked aside. Though she turned back to face Headmistress Stewart, Dido did not draw her gaze up from the dark grey of the stone floor, sure that the vitriol in the older witch’s eyes would burn her if she did.

There was a difference between Matron Logg’s annoyance, Helene Ashburn’s pettiness, and Professor Fuch’s dismissive behavior, and the manner in which Headmistress Stewart seemed to dislike Dido. The girl could recognize this sort of hatred, for it was the same hatred that had prevented her from going to Hogwarts in the first place—a political hatred that Dido was entirely too young to truly understand.

“Let us talk in my office,” Headmistress Stewart snapped, forcing Dido to take those last few steps up onto the landing and at the very least raise her gaze to the Headmistress’ chin.

The door behind the Headmistress unlocked itself without a word or spell, allowing the elderly witch to turn around and push it the rest of the way open with her cane. She hobbled inside, the torches lighting themselves with every step she took, to better illuminate the surprisingly simple room behind the door. Dido had been expecting something similar to her father’s office, gilt and gilded, or the meeting chambers within the Ministry of Magic which had exuded power and wealth. Instead Dido felt as if she had stepped into the sitting room of a simple wizarding family, the walls papered with a dark pattern, the floor covered in woolen rugs, and the furniture designed for comfort rather than presentation.

The Headmistress made her way across the room, and lowered herself into a large armchair behind a delicate wooden desk. The color of the wood was peculiar, a pale white with dark brown whorls across the surface as if there had been two trees at war with one another within the bark. Despite the several large ledgers and thick rolls of parchment stacked up on the desk, it somehow looked as thin and fragile as the Headmistress herself. In a way, Dido thought to herself, they were perfectly matched.

Headmistress Stewart did not invite Dido to sit, though there were two wooden chairs across from her, and so Dido remained standing a foot away from the desk, her hands folded neatly in front of her, eyes downcast. This was her most deferential pose, the one her mother had taught her for social engagements where Dido might be outranked. She had practiced it numerous times already, and the position felt both comfortable and familiar to her.

“I did not agree with the Board when your father submitted an application for your attendance here,” Headmistress Stewart began abruptly in her thin, reedy voice.

There did not appear to be a manner in which Dido could respond, so she remained silent.

“They urged me that the international acclaim we might receive by accepting a student of your background would be worth the trouble of educating a Squib,” the witch continued, “And that you could be pressured to behave, despite your parentage.”

Dido bit back a particularly sharp retort, in which she would point out that, despite constant provocation, she had thus far done nothing but behave which was entirely due to her parentage. The others were the ones that refused to act politely, Headmistress Stewart included. Headmistress Stewart in particular.

“I hope not to disappoint the Board,” Dido murmured.

“Look up at me when I am speaking to you,” the witch snapped, fuming.

Rather reluctantly, Dido did so. The brown eyes of the Headmistress seemed to glow, illuminated by the candlelight surrounding them. Her thin lips were pressed tightly together, her aged hand clenching the head of the cane with white-knuckle force. Just when it seemed the Headmistress would open her mouth to continue her rant, there came a peculiar tinkling sound from behind Dido that distracted both of them from their conversation. The Headmistress glowered, and Dido turned.

What she saw made her gasp, though she managed to largely keep the sound contained. Standing on the other side of the room, Dido saw the familiar shape of that rude little man from that morning, this time bearing one of the silver trays that Dido recognized from the morning before. Though there was a lid covering it, Dido was quite certain the tray contained food from dinner as it happened downstairs. He rather clumsily set the tray down on a small table near the door without speaking.

“I did not send for food,” Headmistress Stewart said. “What are you doing here?”

“This is a meeting, during dinner, without dinner. Shall you go hungry?” the rude little man, pardon, the rude little Pukwudgie, responded.

Dido was quite satisfied to see that the creature utilized an equally rude tone with the Headmistress as he did when addressing her. It told her that he did not hate her for any extraordinary reason, at least not for a reason that did not apply to the rest of the school. She smiled softly at him, but the Pukwudgie ignored her.

“I am capable of scheduling my own meals,” the Headmistress seemed bothered by his insistence that she eat, as her tone shifted from one of anger to one of confusion.

“See that you schedule one for now, then,” the Pukwudgie shrugged, and then vanished as they seemed to do without flash or sound.

Of all the features about these creatures, Dido found their habit of appearing and disappearing most disconcerting. House elves had the decency to alert you to their presence, but these creatures had no such common curtesy. How was one to tell when they were being spied upon? When they were suddenly in the company of another? Her soft smile turned into a frown, which she quickly replaced with her mask of politeness as she faced the Headmistress once more.

The distraction of the Pukwudgie knocked some of the anger out of the elderly witch. Sighing, the woman finally gestured towards a chair, allowing Dido to sit. The young girl did so rather gratefully, for she was weary still from her travels and the lack of sleep over the course of the past few weeks, not to mention the endless _stairs_. But still she kept her posture proper, and made sure not to lean against the back of the seat less the Headmistress think she was being disrespectful. Ignoring her posture, Headmistress Stewart picked up a stack of parchment and began leafing through the pages. With a start, Dido recognized her fathers’ script on the page.

“Your application attempts to refute the charge of Squibery, which seems nonsense to me,” Stewart murmured. “If you are a witch, why haunt our halls instead of staying where you belong?”

“My father tells me that the Ministry has ill intentions towards me as I am his child,” Dido supplied, hopefully helpfully.

Headmistress Stewart fixed her with a cold stare, “I do not doubt that, and I fully support it. But that is not the point of this conversation. Are you a Squib, Miss Montessier, or are you a witch?”

“I am a witch, Headmistress Stewart,” Dido told her.

“Prove it,” the witch challenged, settling back in her seat.

Dido bit back a sigh. She should have expected this, shouldn’t she? Tests, tests, endless tests. But she hoped that this would finally be enough. By the way the witch was speaking, it seemed as if she did not even expect Dido to be able to produce any magic, which meant that this could only end in her favor. One more test, and then to put the question entirely to bed. It seemed only natural to Dido that she should turn to the magic she had been most capable of casting her entire life. Reaching out with her left hand, she opened her palm facing up and opened her mouth to speak the word she had decided to utilize to call up fire.

A thunderous crack split through the air, startling Dido enough that she nearly fell from her seat. Headmistress Stewart had gotten to her feet, her cane laying across the surface of her desk (the source of the noise).

“What do you presume to be doing?” she hissed.

Dido blinked, shocked, “I thought- it seemed- a demonstration, I was trying to-.”

“Use your _wand_ , child!” Stewart demanded. “Only heathens and savages practice wandless magic. You do have a wand, I expect?”

The girl turned bright red. A wand. Casting her mind back to the parting gift her father gave her, now somewhere in her wardrobe or still hidden in a trunk, Dido managed to stammer a response. The Headmistress did not seem appeased by this.

“A proper witch _always_ utilizes a wand, girl,” she snapped. “We expect you to carry it with you always. Do you have yours on you?”

Dido shook her head.

“Never mind,” the Headmistress sighed. “Wandless magic—no wonder you were such a shame. I will tolerate a demonstration of your skill without a wand just this once, but if I hear of wandless magic in my school once more, you shall be _severely_ punished.”

Trembling from head to toe, Dido nodded. When the Headmistress seemed settled back in her seat, Dido shakily raised her hand once more. With barely more than a whisper, she called up a small ball of fire. On a normal day, without even a thought, her fires would burn bright and hot, strong and proud. Today, the flame was little more than the flicker of a wavering candle. She stared at the weak and struggling thing, trying to figure out why it made her feel so afraid.

_Your life is drenched in anger, regret, and fire._

The Seers’ words screamed in her head, and in an instant the fire went out. _I don’t want that life_ , she reminded herself forcefully. _That will not be my future_.

Dido resolved then, sitting in the Headmistress’ office, waiting for the proclamation from the witch as to whether or not she was a Squib, that she would not play with fire again. She was here to learn real magic, not her childish tricks, and if summoning fire without a wand was improper and uncivilized, even more the reason to never do so again. Between the Seer and her Headmistress, Dido was certain this was a proclamation should could fulfill.

When Stewart cleared her throat, Dido brought herself out of her thoughts and returned to the present to hear what the Headmistress had to say. And though Dido had been first disappointed, and then fearful, of her little, flickering flame, it seemed to have had the effect she had wished for on the elderly witch. Rather than looking at the girl with the familiar spite of a magical person upon a Squib, the Headmistress was regarding her newest student with an entirely different air.

“A witch, then,” Headmistress Stewart murmured to herself.

“Yes, ma’am,” Dido agreed.

Headmistress Stewart sighed heavily, “So we shall have to educate you. You understand that you have arrived well into the third week of term?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Dido assured her, “But I promise to work hard and catch up-.”

“Your promises mean nothing, girl, it will be your letters that speak to your skill,” Headmistress Stewart interrupted. “I tolerate no leniency, no favoritism and no forgiveness with my students, understand? Just because your father is so-and-so, and you’ve come from far away, this does not give you an excuse to ask for favors from your instructors.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Dido repeated, growing slightly annoyed now. What sort of student did this witch think she was? Dido prided herself on working hard on her own, not on getting by based off the kindness of someone else.

“Fine,” the witch snapped. “You have been warned. Next time I see you, I expect you to be carrying your wand.”

Nodding vigorously, Dido cemented those words into her memory. She had never used a wand before, she had no good wand habits, but surely those would not be hard to pick up. When she returned to her room, she would make sure to find wherever the wand had gone and familiarize herself with the tool.

“You are dismissed. Return to your dormitory before the evening bell,” the Headmistress told her forcefully.

Not wanting to waste another moment, Dido leapt from her seat. After a short curtsey, barely adequate for the given circumstances, she made for a quick exit. Only once the heavy door of the Headmistress’ office slammed shut behind her did Dido dare break into a run, dashing down the multiple flights of stairs so that she might return to more familiar territory.


	14. The Girl Makes and Enemy and a Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dido experiences a bit of trouble when attending her final few classes. It turns out that someone on campus could hate her even more than the Headmistress, and unfortunately that's one of her professors. Thankfully, it seems that not all professors hate her so much...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the hiatus. with COVID, school (I'm a grad student) and other extenuating circumstances I've been entirely unable to write recently. I'm thankful for the people who stuck around long enough to ask for more, and I hope you'll be satisfied with what I've produced for you!

Dido discovered the next day why she had managed to oversleep. There was no bell in the morning, not in the manner which rang through the rest of the school during class hours. No, instead Matron Logg would call out at each floor the hour for waking, and expect everyone- from the lightest, to the heaviest sleepers- to hear her. It was only because Dido rose with the sun (or rather, with the grey gloom of morning) that she stumbled across this fact. Tucked in the back corner of the fourth floor, she was rather far away from the Matron, and could only barely hear her. But already awake and sitting at her desk, Dido heard and made note that this was to be her wakeup call each day.

She had had a busy night, and very little sleep. After exiting the Headmistress’ office the night before, Dido had chosen not to return to the Dining Hall, but rather to find the library Professor Fuchs had told her about. For whatever reason, the school had decided to hide the entrance to the library behind a dusty and forgotten-looking bookshelf. Thankfully, Professor Fuchs had advised her that by tapping the spine of a green book labeled _Picatrix_ , the bookshelf would vanish, revealing a narrow staircase leading down into the seemingly endless shadows of the school library. There were, she had been informed, eight levels that made up the library, and only the first two of which Dido had access to. The space had been carved into the rock beneath Ilvermorny, tunneled down into a dark, cool place where the books did not need to fear bleaching from the sun, or fluctuating temperatures as seasons changed.

The librarian, a Master Wanamaker, had rather helpfully provided Dido with copies of all the books she would need for the term. The wizard was a ghostly appearing man that, had someone told her spent his entire life hidden away from daylight, Dido would entirely believe. He was gaunt, stooped, with long hair almost as pale as her own, and deep-set grey eyes, clouded by age or illness, which seemed almost incapable of sight. She wondered how he read the titles to her books as he handed them to her, but he did not make a single mistake, so she imagined he had his methods of keeping track.

Her Potions class provided three, her history classes combined had five between them, while most of the others, such as Charms, had only one each. Dido was lucky—both the Charms and Physical Magic books were identical to ones Guarin had given her from his school days, which meant Dido already familiarized herself with their contents. Because of that, and the fact that Professor Owler had told her not to worry overly, Dido focused instead on catching up for the readings she had missed.

American History was as dull as she first worried. There was a chapter on the savage magics which existed before European wizardry arrived on the continent, another chapter on the first wizard to make it to the Americas, followed by three more chapters on early wizarding communities. She fell asleep halfway through the reading, and woke up early in the morning to finish it. Potions she did little more than skim, though she read carefully the chapter on Shrinking Solutions so that she could prepare her written assignment adequately. She ran out of time to actually write the report, however, and added it to her list of things to do after classes finished.

Dressed, with her hair carefully fixed up in a neat twist, and the stack of books she had not yet touched carefully tucked away in her satchel, Dido managed to make it in time to the Dining Hall to actually snag some toast before the tables vanished. She even managed to avoid the Headmistress’ glare during the morning announcements (she believed they called them ‘meditations’) and did not let herself get left behind as her classmates made their way to their first lesson.

The first lesson was History of Magic with Professor Gregory Griffig, the fair-haired brother. The wizard acknowledged her with a nod when she arrived, but did nothing else to recognize her status as a new student. In all honesty, Dido rather appreciated this, remembering without any fondness the awkwardness of trying to introduce oneself in front of the entire class. He did, however, pull her aside after the lesson ended to give her a summary of what she had missed, and inform her which chapters to read over the weekend in order to be caught up with her classmates.

They walked together back to the Dining Hall, where Dido understood she was to have daily language training for the entirety of her first year. By the time she and Professor G. Griffig arrived, Professor L. Griffig was already there, smiling affably at them.

“Miss Montessier!” L. Griffig waved her over, “I’ve reviewed your assessment—your Latin is very strong. I suppose I will amend my thoughts on Onfroi somewhat in consideration. Do you consider yourself as skilled with Ancient Greek?”

“I am uncertain, sir,” Dido admitted. She was relatively stunned that he considered her Latin ‘strong’ for she felt often during the assessment that she had made significant mistakes.

“We’ve another one here for you to take,” he smiled, pressing another stack of parchment into her hand. “By tomorrow, we will have an accurate understanding of you!”

All in all, Dido was rather glad she started her day with the Griffig brothers. They were friendly, for all that their subjects were dull, which brought some cheer to the gloomy institution. Perhaps overtime their likeable personalities would turn her history lessons into equally as enjoyable subjects. She considered it unlikely, but did not entirely rule out the possibility.

Of course, in a life like hers, Dido should have expected that every kindness in this school would be balanced out by something equally, if not more so, unkind. And having two professors who were generally pleasant meant that she would need to have two generally unpleasant professors. At least, this was what she had at first assumed. Professor Fuchs would have been one of the generally unpleasant professors, she thought. He had been gruff and dismissive of her from the beginning, and something about him just generally riled her up. It would make sense, then, that someone else would match his unpleasantness—this was what she was prepared for as she continued on her day.

She was very, very, wrong.

Professor Fuchs was not unpleasant. Well, yes, he was—she still did not like him, even considering how the rest of her day developed. But his personality was far brighter in comparison to Professor Emerson Mallow.

The night before, Dido had managed to generally puzzle through which books belonged to which course. _The Ancient Grimoire_ and _The Civilizing Magics_ quite clearly belonged to her History of Magic course, _Transfigured_ would be for Transfiguration. But one textbook had been entirely foreign to her. _Chrystalmancy_. A quick perusal of the book simply revealed that there were quite a lot of different rocks which qualified as crystals, though why Dido would bother to learn such a thing was entirely beyond her. Crystals? What was the point of such a thing?

At first glance, the room where the lesson took place did not reveal much. It was set up as the others were, in a tiered format with individual desks bolted to the floor, with a blackboard at the front. However, there were several large tables set up just before the blackboard with a multitude of small, shiny rocks laid out. Dido imagined these to be the crystals. And still, no hint of a reason why she should care. Perhaps sensing that she had just been quietly criticizing his course, Professor Emerson Mallow decided quite quickly that Dido was just the sort of lazy, self-centered student that Headmistress Stewart had accused her of being the night before.

The wizard was short, with a pointed red-beard and squinty eyes, which reminded Dido quite forcefully of a beetle. When she made to introduce herself to the man, he gnashed his teeth and glared at her.

“Oh, so now I’ve to stop everything and teach you what you’ve missed?” he snapped at her, “Well I’ll tell you what you’ve missed- Agate, Amber, Amethyst, Amethystine-Agate! And we’ve too many today to review them all!”

“Ah,” Dido blinked, quite frightened already, “I will, of course, make sure to read everything you have assigned-.”

“A book can do my job, then?” he interrupted her. “You would rather sit in the library than learn from me at all? Of course, of course, what is the point to me at all?”

“I hadn’t meant-,” she tried again, only to be cut off once more.

“Agate! Amber! Amethyst! Amethystine-Agate!” he shouted at her. “A page on each, or you’ll fail my course! A page on the others, too, so you can see which you like better, a book or me!”

“O-others?” Dido stammered.

He gestured wildly to the tables in front of him, “Aqua Aura, Aquamarine, Aventurine, Azurite! Do you not see? Do you not have eyes!”

Dido of course had eyes, but the only thing she could see on the table were jumbles of little stones that had no obvious distinguishing features from one another. Thankfully, she refrained from saying so. Still, the wizard continued to shout at her in the remaining minutes before the bell rang. Dido’s face was bright red by then, and she was quite certain she would have started crying if it went on any longer. But so worried the wizard was that he would not have enough time to discuss _Aqua Aura! Aquamarine! Aventurine! Azurite!_ that he did not bother wasting any additional time to chastise her. Humiliated, Dido slunk to a seat in the back of the room, trying to ignore the way in which her classmates seemed to be laughing at her.

Her hands shaking so badly, Dido barely managed to take any notes throughout the entirety of the class period. Hopefully the book he so disparaged would be of use to her, for otherwise she was uncertain how she would complete the eight-page report he seemed to be expecting the next time he saw her. She left the room eagerly by the time the bell rang and stood, trembling like a leaf, in the corridor outside while she waited for her classmates to exit the room.

As distracted as she was by the misery of her crystals course, Dido did not see the pair of hands that shoved her to the side and on to the ground. But when she glanced up, she could see her trio of tormentors standing above her with varying degrees of smugness on their faces. The one in the middle seemed the most likely suspect, the Branch girl, for she had the widest grin on her face. The pretty one was rolling her eyes, though whether at Dido or her friend, Dido could not say. And Helene hovered behind the two, glancing between them as if to figure out what degree of amused she should be.

“You doing alright there, Brit?” the Branch girl asked with a sneer.

“Just resting,” Dido replied automatically, not really thinking about what she was saying. “How might I help you?”

In truth, she was furious that these girls would try to make her already horrible day worse. But if she had learned anything from her mother, it was that expressing emotions such as anger did not strengthen oneself, but rather weakened oneself. Others would see her emotions and realize that she was incapable of controlling herself. They would manipulate her anger for their own good. No, better to keep a smile on her face and pretend as if nothing was wrong. But her small hand was clenched into a fist at her side, a reaction she could not help herself from having.

Before the Branch girl could respond, a fellow first year appeared at her side. His hair was black, and curlier than any hair Dido had ever seen before, though he managed mostly to keep it contained at the back of his head. Dido recognized him from her courses but could remember nothing about him other than the fact that she most often saw him in the company of another boy, the tallest one in their class, whose hair was shaggy and brown.

“Philomena, Professor Applebome wants to speak to you about your report,” the boy interrupted, as if entirely unaware that the girl had just knocked Dido to the ground.

The Branch girl glared at him, “What about my report?”

“Maybe the fact that you turned it in a week late and half-written,” the pretty girl told her with a laugh. “Let’s go see what we can do to keep your letters up.”

The three of them moved away from Dido as quickly as they had appeared, without a backward glance. Dido watched them go apprehensively. Part of her expected them to turn back around, and push her down again if she dared to rise. Suddenly, there was a hand in her face.

“They’ve forgotten you by now,” the boy said, offering to help her stand.

Dido gratefully accepted his help, though she dropped his hand as soon as she could once she was standing. He did not seem to be offended, as he only continued to smile gently at her.

“You’re Meiriona, aren’t you?” he asked casually.

She stiffened, both at his pronunciation and also at the informal manner in which he spoke. Yes, they were of the same age, but was it really acceptable for him to address her that way? Just Meiriona, not even bothering to attach a title to it? But then again, this was the Americas, and her father had always said that American wizards were little better than Muggles.

“Yes,” she replied slowly, “I am.”

“Wonderful,” the boy said, “I’m William Tubney, though you might know me best as Bath. That’s what Professor Owler always calls me.”

Dido scrunched her nose, “Oh, yes, I recall. She had you sitting next to Old Book?”

“Holbrook,” William laughed, “Leonard Holbrook. He’s fine as a seat partner, though he scowls a fair deal.”

“Ah,” Dido replied.

She was unsure what to say next. While William was being quite friendly, she never interacted with boys her age before. Really, she was quite certain it was inappropriate for him to be standing so close to her, but she did not know how to say so without seeming rude. More to the point, without the dark-haired trio around for Dido to follow, she was dependent upon him to lead her to their next class. So she stood there, staring at her shoes and trying desperately not to appear as awkward as she felt.

“Well,” William said after a long minute, “Last class of the day. Transfiguration. Do you know it?”

She glanced up eagerly, “Oh yes! My father always said I had a talent for it. Is…” she hesitated a moment, “Is the class pleasant?”

William seemed to understand what she was asking, and nodded, “Professor Applebome is quite nice. We’re just working on theory now, but I am sure she will be pleased to have a natural in class.”

Dido smiled at his words. A nice professor, one who would be appreciative of Dido’s talent rather than angry with her for being late to arrive, or her father’s daughter. When William offered to introduce her to the professor, Dido followed him without complaint.

The Transfiguration room was just down the hall from whatever that horrible class was Dido just came from. This room immediately spoke of Transfiguration, with the runic alphabet inscribed along the walls, and diagrams of transfigurative transformations pinned up around the space. The blackboard already had extensive writing on it, though Dido could see it was simply a list of names with topics written beside them. It took her half a moment to realize that these were the names of her classmates. She walked down the aisle between desks to get a better look, William following along beside her.

_Ashburn—Water to Wine Baillieu— Roman Revelry_

_Ballensdens—Transfiguration League Branch—Transformation in Witch Hunts_

_Bucket—Early Human Transformation Corvus—Transformation in Muggle Myth_

_Covington—Modern Transfiguration League Grait—Transfiguration Equation_

_Holbrook—Roman Purges Primrose—Circe’s Pigs_

_Rook, G.—The Shoe Rook, L.—Edgar Filliusmore_

_Rook, M—Godly Transformers. Shawcross—Scientific Theory of Transformation_

_Silverthorn—Animagus Transformers Tubney—The Modern Transfiguration League_

_Wernhers—Half-Done Transformations_

“What are these?” Dido asked William as soon as she finished scanning the board.

“Oh, those,” William replied, “Applebome assigned us something to present on at the end of term. We’ve to write a five page report on it too, but my sister told me that it really isn’t that hard. I suppose you’ll have to find something to do, but I don’t know what it’ll be.”

“I’ve some ideas that Miss Montessier and I can discuss after the lecture,” someone interrupted.

Dido turned around to see an elderly witch sitting nearby. The witch was short enough that Dido had not noticed her at first, though now that she could see the witch she felt silly for ignoring her. Clearly older than anyone else in the room, the witch—she was assuming was Professor Applebome—seemed second only in age to Headmistress Stewart. She was much rounder than Headmistress Stewart, and seemed quite sturdy as a result, though the lines in her face gave the impression of someone who smiled far more often than she frowned.

A rather chastised looking Branch, (Philomena Branch, Dido now knew), was standing just to Professor Applebome’s side. In her hand she held a ratty sheet of parchment with marks in green ink across the few words scribbled there.

“Professor Fuchs did mention to me that you’re to meet him in his office before dinner. Perhaps we could decide which topic you will present on while you walk there?” the professor offered.

Dido ducked her head politely, “If it pleases you.”

Chuckling, the elderly witch heaved herself to her feet and hobbled over to the front of the room. “It pleases me greatly, for I’ve an excuse now to go bother the wizard about my missing begonias. I’ve a suspicion he’s been trimming the blooms for ingredients, though he’s loathe to admit such a thing.”

“Begonias?” Dido repeated the word, frowning, “But-.”

“He’s always experimenting,” Professor Applebome said with a wave of her hand. “Cannot seem to satisfy himself with what’s been discovered before. Gotten it into his head a few months back that my flowerbed is the perfect place to find something new.”

Nodding along, even though she could barely follow the narrative, Dido found a seat before the room could fill up. By the time the rest of the class appeared, Professor Applebome had finished a small rant about Professor Fuchs accidentally using her roses in his Fatiguing Infusion, instead of the lavender he meant to use, which resulted in a small explosion and some very potent pockets of sleep-inducing clouds which took three days to dissipate.

Professor Applebome’s lecture on the transfiguration of Roman fountains into wine as a part of the exploration of liquid transformation spells was equally as engaging as her story on Professor Fuchs and his rose-sleep. And it was much easier to follow along, as Applebome made a conscious effort to explain things in a manner which simultaneously answered any questions Dido might have had before she could ask them, as well as maintaining an interesting narrative. Though Dido did not take many notes during the lecture, she did find herself particularly entranced throughout the entire lesson.

Applebome ended her lesson with a question, asking the class to correctly identify which spell Seneca Bachedus invented in order to produce the alcoholic revelry.

A golden-skinned boy with gleaming black hair raised his hand.

“Yes, Mister Baillieu,” Professor Applebome said with a nod.

“That would be _vinius fontanus_ ,” the boy answered proudly, his back straight and eyes narrowed as if daring anyone to correct him.

When Professor Applebome did not immediately congratulate him for his response, but rather focused her pale brown eyes on his face for a long moment, some of the pride wilted out of him. The rest of the class shifted anxiously, unsure why there was the sudden pause in the lecture. Only after a long moment of this did Dido raise her hand.

“Miss Montessier,” Applebome acknowledged, with something akin to surprise in her tone. “Do you have a question?”

“Oh, no,” Dido shook her head, flushing, “It’s just- well, wouldn’t that be _hydroinos_?”

Baillieu whirled around to fix her with a glare, “No, it’s not.”

Dido hunched her shoulders somewhat in response to his wrath. But Applebome did not immediately reproach her, so she did not entirely want to hide.

“Did you read the assigned chapter for this week?” Applebome asked her.

Shaking her head, Dido replied, “No, ma’am. I hadn’t known, that is, I was uncertain-.”

“You have not read the chapter, yet you’re certain that you know the correct spell?” Applebome continued.

Turning red, Dido nodded. “ _Vinius fontanus_ conjures wine, I thought. But _Hydroinos_ transforms water into wine, which if Bachedus was turning Roman fountains into wine, indicates the presence of water prior to the transformation. So I thought that…”

She trailed off, aware that most of the students in the room were glaring at her. She cursed herself for forgetting her place, particularly when connecting the boy who previously answered the question’s name with the topic assigned to him on the board. _Roman Revelry_. Of course Baillieu would know what he was talking about, if this was the subject he was writing on for his term paper. Just because she had read a few books and studied a bit with her father did not make her an expert.

But then Professor Applebome smiled at her, and all her fears washed away.

“Clever,” the witch said, “Yes, it was _hydroinos_. As the chapter indicates, _vinius fontanus_ was not invented for another generation, though it rapidly replaced the popularity of _hydroinos_ as a far more convenient method for quickly securing drinks. Well done, Miss Montessier.”

Torn between beaming from the praise or cowering from Baillieu’s wrath, Dido scribbled down a quick warning in her notes. _Do not show off_ , she wrote, underlining a few times just to ensure the message stuck. It was likely that the note was entirely unnecessary though, for the weight of the glares upon her back as her classmates exited the room weighed heavy upon her.

Applebome was waiting for her as Dido slowly stood. The elderly witch was smiling still, though, which Dido thought of as a small comfort.

“Shall we walk together?” the witch asked.

Dido smiled in reply, though hers was weak and exhausted, “I am grateful if we do, for I have no notion where Professor Fuchs’ office might be.”

Applebome laughed, waving Dido towards the door, “All of the Professors’ offices are on the first floor, though they are relatively small and crowded, so we as a rule prefer to conduct most business in our classrooms. I will show you the way- it is rather simple.”


	15. The Girl Runs into A Familiar Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life is continuing, but something is afoot

Dido’s first weekend at Ilvermorny was spent locked inside her room, surrounded by a pile of books, and cursing anyone she could think to blame for her situation. Unfortunately, at the heart of it she was the person most at fault, and cursing oneself over and over again was never much fun. Still, after her dozenth broken quill, she could not help but hate herself some for wanting to travel all this distance for the sake of an education.

Much of her resentment stemmed from her rather horrible third day of classes. As far as she could tell, lessons operated upon a schedule, going back and forth each day between one set and another. Which meant on Friday, Dido attended her American History, Latin, Potions and Charms courses once more. While she was still dangerously behind in American History, dreadfully bored by Latin, and competent enough at Charms, it was Potions that nearly forced her to give everything up.

After her Transfiguration lesson on Thursday, Applebome had brought Dido directly to Fuchs’ office, where he gave her the test, he had warned her she missed. What he had not warned her of, was that she was supposed to have memorized the entire list of common potions ingredients that was hidden on page twelve of her potions book. As a result, Dido found herself on the receiving end of a failing grade. To make matters worse, when she handed in her report on Shrinking Solution the next day, Fuchs informed her that she had entirely missed the point and ordered her to rewrite the report before their next course. And then he told the entire class that there would be a test on the ingredients and brewing of Shrinking Solution as well, which meant Dido was spending a good part of her weekend attempting to memorize every word of her chapter on the potion.

“Mama was right,” she muttered to herself after three hours of studying, “Potions is a useless subject.”

Montessiers firmly believed that potion brewing was not for Pureblood witches and wizards—better to leave it to the shopkeepers in Diagon Alley, whose complexions did not need to remain free from the oils and smoke of cauldrons. And after trying to catch up on three weeks’ worth of Potions materials, Dido now firmly agreed with this sentiment.

She could not devote the entire weekend to just one subject, though, for her other courses seemed determine to strip her of any dignity she had left. Between her history courses, she had five chapters to read; another chapter for Transfiguration and Charms each; a chapter for a course called Defensive Theory that apparently only met once a week; and, to top it off, six chapters, an eight-page report, and a test to study for, for her crystals class. Someone mentioned that the official name of the course was Physical Magics, but Dido preferred to keep calling it crystals class, as she thought it better conveyed the uselessness of the course.

At first, Dido locked herself in her room to study. There were too many girls gossiping and socializing in the main common space during the day for her to find any peace there, and it felt pointless to cart all of her books and materials up to the library when she was not even sure she was allowed to work there. But her room was painfully small, and she had not yet figured out how to get the window open (whether because there was some magic keeping it shut, or the latch had simply rusted over). After a day and a half trapped in the stuffy space, she managed to do enough reconnaissance to realize that the common area on her floor remained unused by anyone else in the dormitory. The other girls on her floor must prefer to spend their time downstairs, closer to the main building and where there was more space for socializing.

So Dido did not feel guilty colonizing the space. There was not much there, not in comparison to the common area on the main floor. Only two threadbare divan, a handful of armchairs, and a couple of tables crammed into the corners. But the floors were covered in rugs, the drapes could be pulled away from the windows, and there was enough space for Dido to spread her materials out across several surfaces. She would set up camp there in the mornings, get as much work as possible done before breakfast, sneak enough food to keep her satisfied for the rest of the day into her robe, and finish out the day sitting on the floor surrounded by broken quills and sheets of notes.

Not a soul bothered her, not a person tried to speak to her. Even Matron Logg did little else but poke her head in the room a few times a day, and ensure that Dido had not destroyed the space. After a while, Dido stopped noticing when she appeared, too engrossed in her work to bother paying attention to anything other than herself.

By the time she entered the Dining Hall Monday morning, she felt as if she was relatively caught up enough in her work to make it through the day.

Dido did not realize that the course schedule was different on Mondays than any other day. Mondays, it seemed, the instructors each tried to claim an hour of her time, which meant courses were half as long as usual, but she would have all of them that day. In her history courses, back to back with one another, this was not a problem. There were no written assignments, and very little class discussion, which meant she could glide by and pretend this development did not stun her.

But this also meant that she now had her Potions and crystals class back to back with one another. Which made her day go from unpleasant to absolutely horrid. Professor Mallow snarled and gnashed his teeth when she submitted her lengthy report, and she was quite certain he made up a harder test for her to complete than the rest of her classmates. Professor Fuchs ordered her to deliver her report to him by the end of the day, or he would submit her name to Matron Logg as having failed an assignment. The test in his class, she only barely managed to finish because she had been hoping for an extra day to study.

The day ended with Transfiguration and Charms, which Dido considered a blessing. Having learned her lesson from the Transfiguration class the week before, Dido kept mostly silent during their discussion on the formation of the Transfiguration League. Charms was the perfect way to end the day, for it gave her time to finish her report for Fuchs (Professor Owler did not notice) and she managed to run down to his office and submit it before his ridiculous deadline.

“Be prepared to begin brewing on Wednesday,” Fuchs warned her as she left his office.

Dido tucked that piece of knowledge away, taking it as a sign that she would not be seeing him the next day, which meant she would be repeating the same schedule as the Thursday previous. _Mondays, everything_ , she thought to herself. _Tuesdays and Thursdays are a set, and Wednesdays and Fridays are the remaining._ Which meant the next day she had to suffer through another crystals course.

“Barite!” Professor Mallow shouted at them when they entered the room that Tuesday. “Beryl! Black Onyx! Which one would you utilize in a protection amulet!”

Though a few hands were raised, Mallow fixed his eyes on Dido as she was taking her notes out of her bag. She sighed, instantly recognizing that today was going to be Day Three of Mallow’s _Picking on Dido Day_.

“Black Onyx,” she responded, her voice cold.

Even though she knew she answered correctly (having read in advance for the course, suspecting something of this nature would occur) still Mallow’s face twisted with angry pleasure.

“Speaking out of turn!” he crowed, “That’s an infraction!”

Dido wanted to open her mouth to protest, but ultimately chose to keep quiet. She was not entirely certain what an _infraction_ meant, but she could assume by the glee in Mallow’s eyes that it was not a good thing, and arguing with him would likely only result in more trouble. Besides, it was true that he technically had not yet called upon her when she answered his question, which meant he was ultimately in the right. It was Dido’s fault for assuming that he wanted her to answer. So, fuming and furious, she remained at the back of the room, taking notes and glaring at the board as Mallow rambled on about the uses of barite.

That evening, she could not force herself to return to her dormitory. Even though she should be reading for American History, she should be studying the Shrinking Solution guidelines, Dido instead decided to explore the grounds of Ilvermorny for the first time since arriving. She had, by now, a rough understanding of the interior of the main building, from the dining hall to the classrooms to her dormitory. Outside of these places, though, she had little idea what the Ilvermorny campus contained.

Dido ended up finding three different doors that led to the outside. The first was in the main entrance hall, where she first arrived. Yet this door, when she approached it, appeared to be locked, and was apparently not meant as a regular-use entry. Near her dorm, there was another door that opened into a large courtyard, walled in on all sides, which contained a green space that looked much like Dido’s gardens back home. Well maintained, carefully organized, and entirely without any wildness at all. Through this courtyard there was access to a few buildings Dido had never noticed before, one squat stone structure that (based off the people coming and going) appeared to be faculty housing, as well as a small tower built of wooden beams and plaster, with several smoking chimney stacks on top. She also recognized on the other side of the entry hall the large tower which she had climbed with Headmistress Stewart and Matron Logg the week previous, which Dido assumed contained more than just Headmistress Stewarts’ office, though she did not feel like exploring more to find out.

The third door took Dido into a large, fielded space that had something more of an untamed feeling to it. The grass here was knee-high, there were only a handful of narrow paths, and the field gave Dido a beautiful view of the mountainous region she now lived in. But after only a few moments of walking here, Dido caught sight of a bent figure standing beside a large tree Dido had never seen before. Squinting at the figure, Dido recognized it to be Headmistress Stewart, whose hand was placed against the trunk of the tree while her head was tipped up towards the branches. And while Dido believed she was _allowed_ to be out in this field, she was far too wary of another run-in with Headmistress Stewart to want to risk remaining. So she scurried back inside and decided to spend her evening in the much tamer, but still safer, courtyard.

Though much less exciting, the courtyard was thankfully large enough that Dido did not have to share with enough people to make it feel crowded. She wandered for a while, admiring the neatly trimmed hedges and looking for the few remaining flowers from summer. There were a handful of benches and tables placed at even intervals throughout the courtyard, but each one she passed contained pockets of students who appeared to be either studying together or laughing and giggling about something. She recognized a few of them, including a handful of the students in her year. Thankfully the rude girls, Philomena Branch, Helene Ashburn and the third one, Georgia Shawcross, were nowhere to be seen. They travelled together in a small pack, delighting in making Dido’s life harder each time they stumbled across her.

She did spot the girl who shared her table during meals and language training, the one the Pukwudgies hated and seemed to hate everyone in return. She sat on a patch of grass, her legs bent, and arms stretched out, eyes refusing to acknowledge anyone who walked by. Dido still nodded at her when she passed, refusing to abandon all of her manners just because the other girl was cranky.

She eventually found herself a spot between a tumble of prickly bushes and the trunk of a tree Dido could not recognize. At some point, she would have to find a book to give her names for all the new plants they had here, as Dido felt somewhat lost unable to name them. Taking off her robe, Dido spread the material on the slightly damp ground, and settled down so that she could sit comfortably without risking stains on the skirt of her white gown.

The air was damp and cold here, much more so than back home. Dido credited that to their position in the mountains, where it was bound to be cold and the clouds too close to them for it to be dry. While she had no previous experiences living in mountains before, Dido was deciding she rather enjoyed the experience. The wind was particularly active this high up, which meant that when she figured out how to open her bedroom window, she would have no end of fresh air circulating through the room. But rather than focus on the if and someday, Dido told herself to simply enjoy what she had at that moment.

Wind, earth, the faint flickering of sunlight as it was sinking behind the mountains. Darkness came early here, and sooner rather than later she would be forced to lock herself back up inside. Matron Logg seemed to regulate the “dark hours” (as they were called) in the dormitory quick strictly. Sometime near nine in the evening, every door in the dorms would be locked, and Dido would be expected to spend the night in her room, only to be released again sometimes between five or six the following morning. As someone who preferred to stay up late, rather than wake up early, Dido resented this system somewhat. But she was training herself to adjust, which meant that she had to force herself to follow Matron Logg’s schedule, even if she desperately wanted to stay awake longer or sleep in a bit. Tonight, though, she would stay up a little so that she could actually finish the work she was putting off.

As Dido contemplated just how exactly she was going to shift her schedule, she caught a brief flash of movement from the corner of her eye. Ducking down to ensure that she would not be easily spotted, Dido peered through the thorns and leaves of the bushes to try and figure out who was approaching her hiding spot. If it was Helene and her friends, Dido would have to try and hide quickly. Anyone else, she could just ignore.

Or…

After a moment, Dido recognized the grey skin of a Pukwudgie. As this Pukwudgie drew closer, Dido realized it was the same one she met on her first day of classes. The particularly rude one that woke her up and brought Headmistress Stewart food during their meeting. Though the campus was teeming with Pukwudgies it seemed, Dido had not managed to spot this particular one at all since their last encounter with one another.

Dido sat up a bit straighter, excited now. She meant to jump out of her hiding spot when the Pukwudgie passed her, but as he rounded the corner, muttering furiously to himself, Dido realized he did not know she was there. Feeling like she had something akin to an opportunity for revenge, Dido instead waited until the Pukwudgie had nearly disappeared from sight once more before she crept onto the path and began to follow him. Now he would see how unpleasant it was to have someone sneak up on you without warning.

It was not the easiest task. The creature was barely tall enough to be spotted over some of the larger shrubs, which meant Dido had to carefully track his movements. But she simultaneously had to remain absolutely silent, so that he would not immediately realize she was there. Between watching her feet and hunting the Pukwudgie, Dido did not particularly pay attention to where he was leading her. It was only after the cold shadow of a building fell across Dido’s face that the girl realized they had reached the plaster-and-timber tower she had spotted earlier.

Up close, the building appeared to be an architectural disaster. The timbers were unevenly placed, some looking far too thin to support anything, and large chunks of plaster were already beginning to crumble away. The entire structure seemed to be slouching to one side, while the warped wood of window frames looked like bulging growths on the sides of the building.

The concentration of Pukwudgies seemed to be greater near the tower. They entered and exited the building at an alarmingly fast rate, and at first Dido worried she would quickly lose her prey amongst the sea of similar looking creatures. But he stopped for a moment, talking with another Pukwudgie about something that clearly made him quite cross based off of his gesturing. Dido frowned, taking a step closer to the scene as she crouched behind a large rock. No longer interested in surprising the Pukwudgie, she simply wanted to know what he was discussing in order to sate her curiosity.

Before she could make sense of anything, a hand tapped her shoulder and she heard the reprimanding tones of a woman saying, _“Miss Montessier!”_

Jumping around, Dido turned to see Matron Logg looming over her, eyebrows drawn tightly together and a disapproving pout to her face. Dido at once flushed, and prepared for the lecture that she was sure to follow about proper young witches not hiding in the bushes or spying on servants.

“This is a restricted area,” Matron Logg said instead, slightly off topic from Dido’s predictions, though still with the same angry and disappointed tone she imagined. “What do you think you’re doing here?”

“I was just walking!” Dido said. Not quite a lie, though not the entire truth.

“Leaving the acceptable areas of the school is a serious infraction,” Matron Logg snapped. “You can be severely reprimanded for this.”

Tucking her chin close to her chest, Dido muttered, “I hadn’t realized it…”

Matron Logg exhaled sharply through her beaked nose. “I suppose you must not have been informed of this, so I will hold off on punishment today. Remember this for the future, as no-one will show such a kindness again. Do you understand?”

Dido nodded.

“Good,” Matron Logg nodded as well. “Return to the dormitory now. You have better things to do than walking through the gardens—I hear Professor Fuchs is particularly disappointed in your performance thus far.”

Dido scowled and muttered something in agreement as she scuffed the ground with her shoes. Satisfied, Matron Logg spun around and began marching back towards the building, clearly expecting the young witch to follow. But Dido paused for a moment, glancing back to see if Matron Logg’s reprimand had been noticed by any of the Pukwudgies. It appeared not, as they were all moving about as they had been before, without a single gaze turned in her direction.

But then Dido saw him. That rude Pukwudgie, half-hidden behind companions as he continued to engage in rather animated conversation. Like some of the others, he was facing where Dido now stood, but unlike the rest, he seemed to be aware of her presence. They caught one another’s eyes for a moment. He winked at her.

Dido gasped, quickly turning around and running after Matron Logg. How _dare_ he? It seemed obvious to the girl now that the Pukwudgie had always known she was there, that she was following him. He took her intentionally somewhere she was not meant to be, and seemed victorious after watching Matron Logg threaten her.

But as she stormed her way back to safety, Dido was quite startled to recognize a different emotion besides righteous fury and annoyance with the Pukwudgie’s trick. It took a long moment to be able to name the feeling, but when she did Dido froze on the spot.

Amusement. Excitement, amusement, the feeling of losing a round of a game she still could win.

Dido laughed aloud. A true, clear laugh which shocked her almost as much as the emotions inside her. Whether intentionally or not, this Pukwudgie had awoken in Dido a sense of playful rivalry that she had not realized had been missing from her life. He had won now twice—frightening her in her room, and getting her in trouble now.

Dido was determined to win the next round.


	16. The Girl and the Tricky, Troublesome Spell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh, come on. It's a wizarding school, isn't it? How has it taken this long for the first years to get to try their first spells? Thankfully, Dido is here and Dido is entirely ready to learn her very first spell in Charms. Thankfully, she's already a well-known magical prodigy. Thankfully, there's nothing that could go wrong... Right?

“-so long as you understand that, then really, there is no reason to not consider that the utilization of the particular casting will be, when applied properly, the most beneficial of-…” Professor Owler continued on at the front of the class, her hands waving wildly as a piece of chalk automatically scrawled out the words she was speaking on the board behind her.

Dido could barely focus on rambling lecture, though this time it was from excitement, rather than boredom. Now nearing the end of her second week at Hogwarts, for the very first time they were going to actually learn a spell. Owler had been speaking about the theory and history behind this particular charm, _lumos_ , for days now and Dido was quite certain she now knew every little detail there was to know about the wand-lighting charm. But she had not yet cast the spell, which was the most exciting part. Having never used a wand before, she had no use of the wand-lighting charm, which meant that this was entirely new material for her. Her grandfather’s wand sat on the table beside her, dark and gleaming, entirely unused, and more than ready to help her cast her first proper spell.

She was not the only one eagerly paying attention to the lecture, in hopes of finally having an excuse to practice _lumos_. In lieu of their usual distracted and misbehaving manner during their Charms course, students sat up straight and avoided any side conversation or doodling in their notes. As far as Dido could tell, in the weeks she had missed there hadn’t been any wandwork performed, which made her feel a little better about her absence. At the very least, they were now all on the same level.

But Professor Owler seemed just as oblivious to her well-mannered students as she was to her misbehaving ones. The class was rapidly growing impatient with her rambling review of the material they had already learned. Caught between Arum and Helene, Dido noticed increasing levels of agitation by the tapping of feet or fingers, the shifting in seats, the long-suffering sighs. Truly, the dramatics in the room almost matched the levels of her mother’s salons. But Dido could not fault them overly, for she exhibited all the same symptoms of impatience.

Finally, Owler stumbled to a halt. She blinked, hands frozen in mid-air and stared shocked at the classroom as if just noticing them for the first time.

“Right, then,” she said in such a tone that almost convinced Dido she had planned to stop at this point. “Shall we?”

A scrambling of motion as students leapt for their wands, some even leaping to their feet in the excitement of the moment. Dido remained seated, though she did not judge frizzy-haired Lydia Covington or ever-eager Dorado Wernhers for their decision to stand. Looking rather bemused by the energy in the room, Owler nodded at the class and waved her wand rather dramatically.

“Give it a try!” she called out. “Remember, _lumos_! Think light! Think light!”

As her classmates began shouting on all sides of her, Dido slowly reached her hand out to grip the hilt of her grandfather’s wand. Though she carried it with her at all times, as ordered by Headmistress Stewart, and had spent many hours studying the object, to tell the truth she had never truly _held_ it. Not the way she was now, with a hand wrapped around the studded hilt, her wrist stiff and her arm aloft. At the first touch, the wand seemed to vibrate in her grip. The green stones warmed considerably in her palm. But after a brief moment, the vibration stopped, and the temperature returned to normal, which Dido took as a sign to begin casting.

“ _Lumos_ ,” she whispered, flicking her wrist in the manner the diagram in her book described.

Absolutely nothing happened. Not a flicker, not a spark. Though, of course, it was midday and the sun streaming in through the windows might prevent her from noticing a glow even if there had been one. But Dido knew better than to believe that, for she could not feel any of that usual magical flow from her body into the air as whenever she properly cast a spell.

This was not disheartening to the young witch, however. She knew from experience that learning a new spell was difficult, and a single glance around her told her that not a single other student in the room had managed the spell either. Though the trio of students in the back of the classroom with near identical faces (Dido could tell the brother, Lionel, apart from the sisters but which was Galena, and which was Myrle, she could not say) seemed to be making some progress. Arum kept flicking his wand about in a haphazard motion that did not match any wandwork Dido had ever seen before, while Helene remained in her seat, mumbling under her breath and barely moving her wand a millimeter.

“Careful, dear,” Professor Owler was circling the room, correcting posture and pronunciation. She had homed in on the smallest student in the class, a young boy named Edan Primrose, who was holding his pale wand as if it were a snake. “A grip like that will lose your wand faster than you could say _expelliarmus_!”

Unfortunately, Professor Owler had not realized that she still held her wand when uttering that particular incantation and, without meaning to, sent Philomena Branch’s wand flying across the room. The girl leapt to her feet, a howl of anger falling from her lips, as she tumbled after the object. Dido kept her smile of amusement entirely inside as she watched her scramble about on the floor, which was a blessing considering that the first person Philomena turned to look at after acquiring the wand was Dido herself. In the ensuing time since they first met, Philomena had only become more and more unpleasant to be around, and took every opportunity she could to remind Dido that she was foreign, behind in classes, and entirely friendless.

For the most part, Dido did not care that Philomena seemed hellbent on making her life miserable. If only Philomena did not have the ear of Helene Ashburn, who commanded her trio of friends quite forcefully and condoned each of Philomena’s rude actions. If Helene bothered to put her foot down and reign Philomena in, Dido was quite certain that all this bad blood would quickly disappear, but unfortunately the other witch was reluctant to do so.

“Feeling stuck?” Professor Owler had approached Dido without the young witch realizing.

Having been lost in thought, Dido had not attempted the spell a second time yet. She smiled into the older witch’s warm brown eyes, and shook her head.

“No, not stuck. Just focusing!” she promised, telling herself it was not entirely a lie. She had been focused, after all, just on an entirely different subject.

Professor Owler beamed at her, “Focusing. Perfect! What a grand idea. Well, focus along!”

The portly woman scurried off to find another student in need of her aide, and Dido breathed a little easier when she left. It was not that she was intimidated by performing in front of her instructor, for there was absolutely nothing intimidating about the absent-minded woman at all. But all she knew of learning spells came under the careful guidance of her father, who expected perfection immediately and found any failure at all to be incomprehensible. It was one of the reasons why she worked so hard, and studied in advance of lessons. She had to be fully prepared for what was to come, or risk the wrath of Onfroi Montessier.

But he was not there. This was not home. And there was nothing to fear from disappointing Professor Owler— if such a thing was even possible.

So Dido shook out her hand, and waved her wand once more, muttering _lumos_ as she did. Still nothing. Not to worry, not to worry. It would take a few tries at least.

“ _Lumos_!” she uttered again, and waved her wand a little more forcefully.

Still nothing. By now Helene had managed a small, wispy light that faded as soon as the word left her mouth. But still, she had something. Glancing back, Dido saw all three of the Rook siblings sat silent and stoic, their wands aglow before them. Other were showing varying degrees of success—Philomena’s spell managed to produce a painfully bright light that would shine for only a moment, near blinding Dido when she glanced back. Professor Owler was with the girl now, shaking her head and gesturing for the girl to relax her wrist while casting.

 _Breathe. Focus._ Dido ordered herself to remain calm, and focus on the task at hand. She ran through her notes in her mind once more, trying to make sure that she was holding her wand correctly and had memorized the movement as she was supposed to. As far as she could tell, she was making no errors. But her next attempt still produced no light.

“Doing alright there, Montessier?” Helene asked in a snide voice. She now had a proud flicker, wavering and uneasy, but still present.

“Just thinking,” Dido muttered back, eyes narrowing as she stared down the tip of her wand.

“Right!” Professor Owler clapped from the back of the classroom.

Dido turned around with the rest of the students so that she could face the professor. Looking proud and triumphant, the woman beamed at all of them with her hands clasped together before her. Dido felt a twinge of guilt as she thought of her failure to perform.

“Seems we’re getting the hang of it,” Owler announced. “Let’s give it a proper go, then, yes?”

Some students nodded, some called out in agreement. Dido remained still and silent, brow furrowed as she tried to understand what it was Owler meant when she said _give it a proper go._ This question was quickly answered, however, when Owler pulled her wand from her sleeve and gave it a wave. Whatever incantation it was that she spoke was lost of the sudden gasping and shrieking from the students in the classroom. Defying the bright light outside, and the many candles that had been flickering across varying surfaces in the room, Professor Owler had plunged them all suddenly into complete darkness.

Dido felt Helene stiffen beside her, and heard several muttered curses as students stumbled their way into seats. By the rustling of robes on the ground, Dido presumed that Professor Owler was the one to cross the room and return to her place in the front. Somehow, despite being entirely incapable of most things otherwise, the witch managed to traverse the dark and dangerous space without stubbing her toe on a single table, or tripping over bags and shoes.

“Edan, or, Evan? Or- well, give it a try,” Professor Owler commanded.

Guided by a whispering voice, Dido turned just in time to see a light appear in the darkness, illuminating the face of Edan Primrose after he successfully casted his charm. Realizing now what Owler intended, Dido’s heart dropped into her stomach. Her suspicions were confirmed once Owler called out next, “Dietrich!”

One by one, in some bizarre order Dido did not understand, Professor Owler ordered each student to demonstrate their skill. After Dietrich, she called a boy named Godfrey Ballensdens, the three Rooks, and finally arrived at Dido herself.

While she had been waiting for her name, Dido had been repeating under her breath over and over, _lumos, lumos, lumos._ She held her wand with white-knuckled strength, so much so that a distant part of her worried that she would accidentally snap it in half. But the wood remained strong, and Dido had no excuse not to demonstrate the spell when Owler called on her. Across the room, six weak and flickering lights already glimmered (for they had not yet learned the spell that would _de_ light their wands, which meant they had to suffer through glowing wands until the spell died on its own). Taking in a deep breath, Dido raised her hand.

“Lumos!” she cried.

The word came out strong, triumphant. Every syllable exactly how a proud and skilled spellcaster should say them.

And she remained illuminated in darkness.

An echoing of laughter attacked her on all sides. Thankful that no-one could see her face flushing in the darkness, Dido tried once more. This time, her incantation came out sounding weak and frightened. Still nothing.

“Well,” Owler hummed sympathetically from her invisible position in the front of the room. “It can take some time to figure out.”

Dido slouched in her seat, wanting to hide even though she was already surrounded by darkness. As Owler moved them along to the next student on her list, Dido tried to ignore the tittering voices around her. _It can take time_ , she comforted herself. _This is my first time using a wand_. It would just take some practice, is all. But as Leonard Holbrook demonstrated his perfect _lumos_ , Helene Ashburn leaned over to press her face against Dido’s.

“Look’s like you’re a disgrace on two continents now, Montessier,” she mocked.

Dido burned hot with shame while the rest of the class had their turn. She felt particularly worse when both Arum and Helene on either side of her managed to illuminate her flushing skin with their glowing wands. Eventually, the lights returned to the room and the glowing from the wands faded into nothing as students lost focus and their magic lost power. Still, many of them clutched their wands close to them, as if waiting for the first opportunity to spring into action and produce a light. For her part, Dido kept her grandfather’s wand pushed all the way to the edge of her desk, avoiding even looking at the instrument. She could have done the spell, if only she hadn’t needed a wand.

Dido tried to explain this to Professor Owler after the rest of her classmates left for the day. The older witch was entirely sympathetic to Dido’s struggle, reminding her that it could take days to master your first spell.

“I’ve cast spells before,” Dido protested quickly. “Many of them! But never with a wand.”

Those words forced Professor Owler to pause halfway through shoving a handful of parchment into the pocket of her robe. She stared at Dido, eyes blinking.

“Without a wand?” she repeated.

Dido nodded, “This is my first time wielding one.”

The witch frowned, “Who thought it appropriate to teach a witch of your pedigree _wandless magic_?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that-,” Dido tried to correct, though she was unsure exactly how to defend herself in this situation.

 _Only heathens and savages practice wandless magic_ , Headmistress Stewart had warned her. Dido was only just now starting to piece together exactly how improper it was to utilize magic without a wand. She flushed, now wishing she had chosen to keep her wand out rather than hide it away in her bag after her failed lesson.

“I’ll make sure to practice before next week,” Dido pledged the witch, hoping to distract her professor from continuing her condemnation. “I just need to adjust, that is all.”

“Yes,” Professor Owler agreed, though she was still frowning. “Practice. Adjust. We’ll see about it next lesson, I suppose.”

The professor hurried from the room, leaving half of her belongings behind as she left, as if deciding it was better to sacrifice books in order to preserve the purity of her magic. Dido sighed, feeling a complex combination of shame, frustration and sadness. It was not her fault her parents had allowed, no, encouraged! her wandless magic. And if her years of training without a wand meant she was going to struggle learning magic the proper way, Dido was well and truly furious with her parents. How could they make things harder for their already struggling daughter?

No, never mind all that. It would do her no good to stew in these sorts of thoughts. Dido shook her head, hoping to clear her mind from much of the doubt and anger that was seeping through her brain. She left the Charms room quickly, abandoning all thoughts of joining the school for dinner so that she could return to her dormitory. Nothing to do but practice now, and practice over and again until she could prove to Professor Owler that she was not crippled by the use of a wand.

 _How hard can it be_ , she thought to herself, _to learn how to cast a light?_


	17. The Girl Gets in Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's remember that our poor protagonist is, at the end of the day, only eleven. It was bound to happen at some point, and now we get to see what the final straw is that breaks the camel's back!

“Citrine, Coral,” Dido muttered under her breath, “Calcite, carnelian, _lumos!”_

Dido quickly turned to look at her wand. Nothing. She had been practicing the spell for days now, and had recently developed a method of casting without paying attention, as if hoping the magic could be coaxed out of her. Dido had taken to doing her homework with her wand by her side, seizing it suddenly and casting the spell without looking. Perhaps she was just having troubles performing under pressure, and subtly would work better than force.

Thus far, even this new tactic had not produced any results. Frustrated, dejected, Dido refused to give up hope. But as the days passed, her anger at her failings grew. Dido was now incredibly short-tempered, and had to work harder to resist snapping at those who thought to mock her.

Helene Ashburn had now graduated from a mere nuisance to a true enemy. She stalked her in the corridors, she haunted the common room. Whenever Dido failed to perform, stumbled in recitations, received poor marks on an assignment, Helene was there to point out every one of Dido’s mistakes. If her uniform was even the slightest bit imperfect, Helene would immediately report her to Matron Logg. When distracted by the stress of _lumos_ , Dido would neglect to attend meals, Helene would obnoxiously inform Dido of how _wonderful_ the food had been. Should Dido make an appearance in the Dining Hall, she could overhear Helene loudly discussing how disgusting it was that Dido ate so much food.

Thankfully, Dido had two escapes from Helene’s tormenting. The first was simply that Dido still managed to hide behind her polite façade that her mother had drilled into her from a young age. Every Montessier, witch or wizard, was raised as a perfect politician—and no politician would ever dare to respond to a barb or attack with anything but smiling faces and honeyed speech. Dido even managed to take some pleasure in how her unending pleasantness even in the face of unending wickedness managed to unnerve Helene. She would falter when Dido smiled up at her after being knocked to the ground. She would ask if Helene had been hurt after the girl tipped Dido’s cauldron over during potions. It confused and vexed the other girl that she could not get a rise out of her victim, which only strengthened Dido’s resolve to remain kind.

And if Dido ever felt too strained by Helene’s behavior to trust her manners, she would remove herself from whatever situations she was in by hiding up on the fourth floor of the dorm. She had by now discovered the secret to why her floor had always been so quiet—she was the only resident of the space. Apparently, the other floors had been sufficient in housing the other female students, and when she arrived she had to be placed in the overflow space which was rarely ever utilized. While her female classmates might have thought this made Dido lonely, in truth the girl was thrilled. No-one bothered her here, and she utilized the floor as her own personal space for studying and, (though she never quite managed to find the time) relaxing.

Dido sat in her usual spot on the floor tucked between an armchair and the wall. The seats were generally uncomfortable, likely the worn and ready to be retired furniture that no-one else wanted. But she had built herself a nest utilizing spare cushions and a few blankets found here and there which was both comfortable and provided Dido easy access to the low tables in the room where she could write her reports while keeping her books organized. Though the days on the mountain remained cooler than what she had been accustomed to at home, there was yet to be a fire lit in the fireplace, so Dido usually wrapped herself in a thicker robe to keep warm while she worked.

Her current focus was, as always, _lumos_. In the week since she had been introduced to the spell, Dido practiced night and day. But she was pretending to be working on memorizing her _C_ crystals for Mallow, who was testing the class on Monday. There were still four days until Monday, and an entire day of classes still ahead, but Dido preferred to be prepared for what she considered her ‘trap’ classes.

There were two of these. Crystals being one of them, and charms the other. She called them trap classes because no-matter what she did, she seemed incapable of satisfying her instructors. Mallow delighted in her every mistake, and strove to force mistakes upon her whenever she was performing well. Owler, on the other hand, grew despondent whenever Dido could not perform well enough. She wrung her hands, she muttered worries, she eyed Dido as if she had some incurable disease. But still, the weight of her disappointment hung heavy around Dido’s shoulders.

So focused was she on preparing for her trap classes, that Dido had begun largely neglecting all of the others. For Transfiguration, this was next to no problem. Dido was a natural in the subject, and had an easy time memorizing the theory and history that Applebome expected of the class. While she refrained from showing off, as her first experience taught her, she still coasted through easily during exams, discussions and homework. It helped that they were to spend the entire first term on theory, and would not be casting a spell until after the holiday.

For her history courses, it presented somewhat more of a problem. Dido had never enjoyed the subject, and had no background in American history. But the professors were forgiving, and there were only a handful of assignments to prepare for. She was to take a final exam for each course which would make up a majority of her marks, so she decided to put off studying until then.

The place where she found the most trouble was Potions. Almost as useless a subject as crystals, Dido had given up on the pretense of studying for that particular course. Who cared about Shrinking Solution, really? Dido would do what was required of her, and nothing more. If Professor Fuchs did not like it, it was his own fault for designing his course in this manner.

It seemed he did not agree with this assessment of his teaching ability.

“Is there a particular reason why you have, once again, failed to brew this potion correctly?” he demanded late Friday afternoon.

They had spent the entire course rebrewing Shrinking Solution. Again. Apparently Professor Fuchs believed that repetition was the most effective manner of teaching, for they had only just finished brewing the potion for a first time earlier that week, after which they had to write a report and spend almost an entire day discussing all the places they had gone wrong. Dido found this an entirely ridiculous requirement—if they knew what they did wrong, why would they have done it wrong in the first place? Unfortunately, stating that in her report had resulted in a rather severe lecture from Fuchs on the appropriate tone in which to be writing.

Perhaps it had been this lecture, perhaps the frustration of repeating herself, that she just had to suffer through a miserable crystals quiz, or that she barely slept for stress of studying, but Dido finally broke that following Monday. They were to test their second batch Shrinking Solution in comparison to their previous brew, so that they could, ‘measure their progress’. Fuchs tested the potions on a simple quill, but he did so one at a time in front of the entire class. The order followed the order of seating assignments, of which Dido had received the last one as having been late.

So Dido sat, growing more and more annoyed, and watched Fuchs evaluate each of her classmates. Most everyone did middling, though as always Lydia Covington, the studious and frizzy-haired girl who sat at Dido’s table for meals, managed to perform the best. This time, her quill quivered and managed to grow smaller by the slightest degree, but had done so in it’s entirety, instead of just in a few places as most of the rest of the class’s potions had done. Arum Silverthorn and William Tubney’s potions managed to do nothing at all, and Silverthorn’s had even caused a slight fire when applied. And then came Dido’s turn, where her quill dropped every one of the vanes, leaving only the shaft and a pile of fluff. Professor Fuchs sighed while Helene and her cronies burst into giggles.

“Miss Montessier,” he said in a weary, much beleaguered tone, “How is it that you have done worse on your second try than on your first?”

On her first try, nothing happened.

“I don’t know,” she replied in a rather rude tone.

He raised a brow at her while the class grew quiet. “Were you not focusing as you worked?”

“I followed the instructions,” she snapped.

Absolute silence in the room. Students looked at one another, stealing glances at Dido in the back of the room and Fuchs in the front. Helene Ashburn had a shocked look on her face, likely because she could not believe that Dido would finally lose her temper with a member of faculty instead of her. But Philomena Branch was openly looking back and forth between Dido and Fuchs, grinning wildly all the while. She, it seemed, did not care who was tormenting Dido so long as the girl was suffering. And she was surely to suffer now.

“And…?” Fuchs continued. “You followed the instructions, and?”

“And what?” Dido demanded. “That’s what I’m supposed to do. You follow the stupid instructions, you make the stupid potion. It’s not my fault if the instructions were poorly written.”

“’Poorly written’?” he asked.

“Obviously, otherwise so many of us wouldn’t be struggling to follow them!”

Dido was shouting now, and standing up with her hands pressed flat against the surface of the table she used. Though dwarfed by her Potions instructor, who was yet to move an inch from his position in the front of the room. The emotionless wizard gave no sign of how he felt about Dido’s outburst, though it would not take a genius to assume that he was angry with the girl.

“If you struggle with the book, perhaps you should think hard about why and where you are unable to comprehend the instructions,” he advised her. “Should you find an error, you are free to point out necessary corrections. Until that time, I recommend you trust in what you read, or ask questions rather than blindly pushing through.”

For some reason his calm response bothered Dido more than if he had shouted back at her. She had been so angry for days now, weeks, and there had been no outlet. She would not fight with Helene and lose the battle, and there had been no one else to shout at. She wanted to shout. She wanted to fight. But he wouldn’t let her. She was angry. She was angry! Why wouldn’t someone _notice_ that she was angry?

Dido picked up her book from the table beside her and slammed it onto the ground. Normally she would be wincing at the unnecessarily cruel treatment of an innocent book, but today she felt a perverse pleasure in watching the binding quiver from the force of her throw. That was satisfying. _This_ was satisfying. She smashed a few vials, empty and waiting to be filled with Shrinking Solution samples. She swept wormwood and cowbane to the floor. She would have dumped her cauldron too, but a small voice in the back of her head reminded her that it was a rather dangerous concoction that might do lasting harm if it touched something delicate. The young witch paused.

But while students had leapt to their feet, gasping and shrieking, climbing over one another to reach the safety of the walls, Professor Fuchs stood still as a statue. His narrowed gaze focused not on Dido, but on the samples of her Shrinking Solution on his desk.

It wasn’t the reaction she wanted. She didn’t know what she wanted. There had to be something she could do, or say, or break, in order to feel better but after taking a breath now, all she felt was stupid and embarrassed. And still so very angry. Fuchs shifted to face the students pressed up against the wall.

“Prepare a written comparison of your brews for Wednesday,” he told the class. “Make sure to read chapters 12-15 in _The Art of Potion Making._ We will be preparing to rebrew for Friday.”

The bell rang, dismissing the class. Students scrambled for their bags, shoving in parchment and books, notes and quills, without paying attention to what and how they were doing so. If Dido had been calm, she would have found it amusing—they were so suddenly turned into miniature versions of the very careless Professor Owler; despite mocking her regularly, they were now in the same position. But she did not find it amusing, not now. As they carefully avoided the mess she made, and as they carefully avoided her, Dido waited out the stream of bodies pushing through the door and out into the corridor.

“Nice going, English,” Philomena muttered under her breath and she passed Dido.

The young witch flushed and felt, to her great humiliation, tears forming in her eyes. She remained steadfast though, still and breathing heavily, until it was only Fuchs and Dido left.

“You have class to attend,” he told her rather pointedly, now shuffling through parchment at his desk and still not looking up at her.

 _Look at me_ , she shouted in her head. _Pay attention to me._

“I thought that you-.”

He cut her off, “You are dismissed.”

It hurt like a slap from her father. No, it hurt more. When her father hit her, he was at least expressing himself and his displeasure. He was telling Dido exactly how he felt about her and her actions, and ensuring that she knew to correct herself and behave properly in the future. This cold emptiness from Fuchs felt somehow worse, as if she did not deserve his time and acknowledgement.

Trembling from head to toe, Dido slowly collected her materials and left the room.

After hiding in the girl’s washroom during their brief break between midday and afternoon courses, Dido had to slink back out into the corridor and make her way to Transfiguration. She waited until the very last moment, as the bell began to ring, to open the door and slip inside. Though she normally claimed a seat towards the front of the room, this time she hide herself in the last row, slumped down in her seat with her eyes focused on her book.

Still, she could hear the others whispering about her.

They pondered exactly how furious Fuchs had been with her, how he must have yelled and shouted and threatened her about her behavior. They discussed her punishments, ranging from having to clean up her mess to being kicked out of Ilvermorny. While Dido was relieved none applied to her, and honestly a fair amount impressed by the imaginations of her cohort, sill she had a sinking feeling in her stomach as if she had not entirely escaped Fuchs’ wrath.

The rest of the day passed slowly. Dido jumped at every noise, every mention of her name. When she saw Professor Fuchs in the hallway just before dinner, she ducked behind larger students and quickly backtracked once it was safe. She reveled in the relative isolation of her table during meals, as it provide some distance from other students. The long-haired student with a grudge against Pukwudgies even spared Dido a sidelong glance, though she did not break the silence between them. No-one spoke to her.

After an afternoon of anxiety, Dido was surprisingly relieved when Matron Logg appeared in the fourth-floor common space that evening after dinner. The older witch seemed more disappointed than usual, her thin lips pinched and her eyebrows in a severe line across her face.

“Professor Fuchs spoke sent a note to me today,” she said in a disapproving tone. “Have you anything to say in your defense?”

“No,” she muttered, head hanging.

“Failure to complete a lesson to the instructor’s satisfaction is only an intermediate infraction,” Matron Logg informed her after a moments’ pause.

“Intermediate?” Dido repeated, confused. _Failure to complete a lesson?_ She also wondered, though silently. _Is that what it could be called?_

Sighing, Matron Logg held out a long scroll of parchment, “I assumed that you were not briefed on the infractions, based upon your behavior today.”

Numb, Dido accepted the parchment. Unrolling it revealed lines of spindly writing, with sections separated by a thick black line and the words _Minor, Intermediate, Significant_ and _Serious._ She scanned the lists quickly.

Inelegant behavior in common spaces.

Failure to complete lessons to a satisfactory degree.

Student out of dormitory during dark hours.

Violent behavior between students and students, students and staff, students and faculty.

The last one was considered a _serious_ infraction, and made Dido’s stomach drop. She recalled the recklessness as she threw objects on the ground earlier that day, her sense of satisfaction watching things break and shatter. Had she managed to hit anyone in her anger, Dido could be facing expulsion.

“As Professor Fuchs has informed me you are not yet capable enough to assist with classroom preparations, he has requested that your punishment take place in a location where you might be able to review and participate in activities which might improve your potions skills,” Matron Logg told the girl. “I have assigned you to the Kitchens as a result. You will report there tomorrow after your lessons, and shall remain until you are dismissed by the kitchen staff.”

Dido nodded, only barely able to listen to the witch. She was rereading the list now, far more carefully than before.

“Miss Montessier, this is only your first infraction, and as such you will not be summoned before Headmistress Stewart,” Matron Logg continued, before sternly warning, “If I hear two more complaints of this nature, you shall have to answer to the Headmistress.”

She nodded once more. With a satisfied sigh, Matron Logg departed, leaving Dido to review the parchment alone.

_Intermediate-_

Unbecoming language  
  
---  
  
Harmful behavior within common spaces  
  
Non-harmful disruptive behavior within classrooms, occupied hours  
  
Tardiness of more than one less than five minutes for standard periods; of more than five less than ten minutes for double periods  
  
Tardiness of more than one minute for meditations  
  
Three or more uniform infractions at any given time  
  
Failure to submit class assignments within the required time  
  
Failure to complete lessons to a satisfactory degree  
  
Failure to receive passing letters on examinations  
  
Disregard of dark hours within the dormitories  
  
Disregard of rules of behavior for the library and associated study spaces  
  
Improper use of classroom equipment and supplies  
  
Improper or harmful use of school materials and equipment  
  
Unrespectful conduct towards a member of the school faculty or staff  
  
There were so many things on the list that she was guilty of. Would her behavior be considered harmful or non-harmful? She certainly had utilized the classroom equipment improperly, and behaved very disrespectfully towards Professor Fuchs. Yet he only submitted one complaint on her behalf, not the multitude she knew she had committed. _Best not dwell_ , she told herself, forcing her hands to drop the scroll and pick up _Chrystalmancy_ so that she could prepare for Tuesday’s classes.

But she did dwell. She worried and fretted, she wondered how she could possibly face Professor Fuchs again. Would he threaten her with the other infractions that he could submit at any time? Was this somehow an attempt to warn her that he could punish her whenever he wanted, without needing an excuse? She did not know. But she hoped to clear some of her guilty conscience by completing her punishment without complaint.

Matron Logg escorted her to the kitchens after her lessons, having realized the girl would have no notion as to where to go. Dido followed her, too busy steeling herself for the difficulty ahead, to give much notice as to where they were going. But when the pulled to a stop in front of a squat and poorly built tower, Dido recognized it instantly. She perked up slightly, and followed Matron Logg with less trepidation as she swung open the heavy door to reveal the interior of the building.

The interior was dark and filled with smoke and steam. The smell of cooking food permeated the air, rushing past Dido as the door opened. Scurrying about in the gloom were dozens of small bodies, calling to one another in a language Dido could not recognize, some cheerfully but most with a rather grumpy tone.

And standing directly in front of them, with his arms crossed and his toe tapping, stood the Pukwudgie Dido knew from her first day of classes.

“William,” Matron Logg began, “This is Meiriona Montessier—she will be assisting your preparations this evening.”

The witch did not wait for acknowledgment, and swept from the room as if she feared that remaining in the kitchen too long would reduce her dignity. She was a witch, after all, not a servant. That left Dido and the Pukwudgie, _William_ , she now knew, staring at one another.

“Found you,” Dido told him with a grin.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback welcome/ideal! I know this isn't traditional, so if nobody really cares to read it, feel free to tell me and I'll keep the story to myself!
> 
> Thanks for making it this far!


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